UD engineers create bacteria that can synthesize an unnatural amino acid
Amino acids are the individual building blocks of proteins and are essential for biological systems to work properly. There are 20 standard amino acids that make up proteins in all living systems, more than 500 different types of other amino acids found in nature, and a large number of man-made amino acids. Some of these alternative amino acids can help create new types of pharmaceuticals and therapeutics.
Now, University of Delaware researchers in the lab of Aditya Kunjapur, assistant professor in the College of Engineering’s Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering, have engineered bacteria to synthesize an amino acid that contains a rare functional group that others have shown to have implications in the regulation of our immune system. The researchers also taught a single bacterial strain to create the amino acid and place it at specific sites within target proteins. These findings, published in Nature Chemical Biology, provide a foundation for developing unique vaccines and immunotherapies in the future.
