• Biotechnology and Bioprocess Engineering:BBE
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• v.11 no.4
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• pp.299-305
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• 2006

Aromatic L-amino acid transaminase is an enzyme that is able to transfer the amino group from L-glutamate to unnatural aromatic ${\alpha}-keto$ acids to generate ${\alpha}-ketoglutarate$ and unnatural aromatic L-amino acids, respectively. Enrichment culture was used to isolate thermophilic Bacillus sp. T30 expressing this enzyme for use in the synthesis of unnatural L-amino acids. The asymmetric syntheses of L-homophenylalanine and L-phenylglycine resulted in conversion yields of >95% and >93% from 150 mM 2-oxo-4-phenylbutyrate and phenylglyoxylate, respectively, using L-glutamate as an amino donor at $60^{\circ}C$. Synthesized L-homophenylalanine and L-phenylglycine were optically pure (>99% enantiomeric excess) and continuously pre-cipitated in the reaction solution due to their low solubility at the given reaction pH. While the solubility of the ${\alpha}-keto$ acid substrates is dependent on temperature, the solubility of the unnatural L-amino acid products is dependent on the reaction pH. As the solubility difference between substrate and product at the given reaction pH is therefore larger at higher temperature, the thermophilic transaminase was successfully used to shift the reaction equilibrium toward rapid product formation.

• KSBB Journal
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• v.23 no.5
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• pp.355-361
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• 2008

Proteins carrying unnatural amino acids with novel side chains add a new dimension to studies of protein structure and function. This article provides an overview of the various strategies that have been developed to date for the synthesis of such proteins.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.13 no.3
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• pp.344-347
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• 2003

Unnatural amino acid S-(2-nitrobenzyl)cysteine was incorporated into human erythropoietin by using a programmed suppression of nonsense codon in a cell-free protein synthesis system. Several controlling factors affecting the operational efficiency of the suppression were investigated and optimized. The amount of suppressor tRNA and the concentration of $Mg^2+$ were crucial not only for the efficiency but also for the control of the exact suppression. In addition, some general optimization factor are reported in order to improve the efficiency in an unnatural amino acid mutagenesis.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.50 no.1
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• pp.1-7
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• 2014

Site-specific incorporation of unnatural amino acids (SSIUA) into protein can be achieved in vivo by coexpression of an orthogonal pair of suppressor tRNA and engineered aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase (ARS) that specifically ligates an unnatural amino acid to the suppressor tRNA. As a step to develop the SSIUA technique in Escherichia coli, here we established a new 2-step screening system that can be used for selecting an ARS variant(s) that ligates an unnatural amino acid to a suppressor tRNA. A positive selection system consists of chloramphenicol acetyl transferase gene containing an amber mutation at the $27^{th}$ residue, and efficiently concentrated amber suppressible ARS with a maximum enrichment factor of $9.0{\times}10^5$. On the other hand, a negative selection system was constructed by adding multiple amber codons in front of a lethal gene encoding the control of cell death B toxin (ccdB) which acts as an inhibitory protein of bacterial topoisomerase II. Amber suppression of ccdB by an orthogonal pair of Saccharomyces cerevisiae tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase (TyrRS) and an amber suppressor tRNA significantly inhibits bacterial growth. This selection system was also able to efficiently remove amber suppressible ARS which could ligate natural amino acids to the suppressor tRNA. Thus, sequential combination of these two selection systems might be able to function as a powerful tool for selecting an ARS variant that specifically ligates an unnatural amino acid to the suppressor tRNA from an ARS mutant pool.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.42 no.5
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• pp.386-396
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• 2019

Labeling of a protein with a specific dye or tag at defined positions is a critical step in tracing the subtle behavior of the protein and assessing its cellular function. Over the last decade, many strategies have been developed to achieve selective labeling of proteins in living cells. In particular, the site-specific unnatural amino acid (UAA) incorporation technique has gained increasing attention since it enables attachment of various organic probes to a specific position of a protein in a more precise way. In this review, we describe how the UAA incorporation technique has expanded our ability to achieve site-specific labeling and visualization of target proteins for functional analyses in live cells.

• Proceedings of the PSK Conference
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• 2002.10a
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• pp.339.1-339.1
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• 2002

Since two selective COX-2 inhibitors. celecoxib and rofecoxib, showed good biological activity as antiinflammatory agents. many medicinal chemists are interested in specific COX-2 inhibitors. The distinguished feature of these drugs is that the 5-membered heterocycle ring is substituted with two aryl groups. Therefore, in this study, we designed a new hydantoin derivatives via the reaction of unnatural amino acids as selective COX-2 inhibitors, In systematically steps. 5-phenyl-1 (or substituted) hydantoin derivatives were prepared through esterification. bromination, C-N bond formation, cyclization from phenyl acetic acid. Particularly. a novel hydantoin ring was converted from unnatural amino acids with potassium isoyanate. In last step. the final analogs were synthesized the substitution at 3-position with alkyl reagents.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2014.02a
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• pp.191.1-191.1
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• 2014

Crystallization has become the most popular technique for the separation of enantiomers since the Pasteur's discovery. To investigate mechanism of crystallization of chiral molecules, it is necessary to study self-assembled structures on two-dimensional surface. Here, we have studied two-dimensional self-assembled structures of an unnatural amino acid, (S)-${\beta}$-methyl naphthalen-1-${\gamma}$-aminobutyric acid (${\gamma}^2$-1-naphthylalanine) on Au(111) surface at 150 K using scanning tunneling microscopy (STM). At initial stage, we found two chiral honeycomb structures which are counter-clockwise and clockwise configurations in one domain. The molecules are arranged around molecular vacancies, dark hole. By further increasing the amounts of adsorbed ${\gamma}^2$-1-naphthylalanine, a well-ordered square packed structure was observed. In addition, we found the other structure that molecules were trapped in the pore of the hexagonal molecular assembly.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.47 no.5
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• pp.276-282
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• 2003

For the development of new synthetic method for unnatural amino acid esters, N-aryl phenylglycine Ο-alkyl esters 4a∼i were synthesized through esterification, bromination, C-N bond formation from commercially available phenylacetic acids. An efficient and practical reaction condition for esters 2a∼c was that the starting materials 1a∼c were refluxed in absolute methanol for 3 hours with catalytic concentrated hydrosulfuric acid. In addition, bromines 3a∼c were formated for 3h in dichloromethane at rt with N-bromosuccinimide. Bromines 3a∼c were also converted to 4a∼i through substitution of arylamines during refluxing for 24 hours in ethanol with triethylamine. Interestingly, ethyl esters 5a∼c were formed via transesterification reaction when the p-sulfamylanilino group was used as a nucleophile in ethanol solvent.

• Korean Journal of Microbiology
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• v.54 no.4
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• pp.420-427
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• 2018

The orthogonal pair of Saccharomyces cerevisiae tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase (Sc YRS) and a variant of E. coli initiator tRNA, fMam $tRNA_{CUA}$ which recognizes the amber stop codon is an effective tool for site-specific incorporation of unnatural amino acids into the protein in E. coli. To evolve the amber suppression activity of the orthogonal pair, we generated a mutant library of Sc YRS by randomizing two amino acids at 320 and 321 which involve recognition of the first base of anticodon in fMam $tRNA_{CUA}$. Two positive clones are selected from the library screening with chloramphenicol resistance mediated by amber suppression. They showed growth resistance against high concentration of chloramphenicol and their $IC_{50}$ values were approximately 1.7~2.3 fold higher than the wild type YRS. In vivo amber suppression assay reveals that mutant YRS-3 (mYRS-3) clone containing amino acid substitutions of P320A and D321A showed 6.5-fold higher activity of amber suppression compared with the wild type. In addition, in vitro aminoacylation kinetics of mYRS-3 also showed approximately 7-fold higher activity than the wild type, and the enhancement was mainly due to the increase of tRNA binding affinity. These results demonstrate that optimization of anticodon recognition by engineered aminoacyl tRNA synthetase improves the efficiency of unnatural amino acid incorporation in response to nonsense codon.

• YAKHAK HOEJI
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• v.47 no.3
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• pp.130-134
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• 2003

For the development of new synthetic method for unnatural amino acid esters, N-aryl phenylglycine Ο-alkyl esters 4a∼i were synthesized through base-catalyzed hydrolysis of 1,5-diphenylhydantoins 1a∼b and Ο-alkylation in 16∼87％ yield. An efficient and practical route for final 4a∼i was that the starting materials 1a∼b were heated in dil-methanol for 30 minute using sodium hydroxide or potassium hydroxide and evaporated. In addition, reaction mixture were refluxed for 1 h in DMF. All synthetic process from hydantoin to N-aryl phenylglycine Ο-alkyl esters 4a∼i could be carried out in one-pot without isolation of intermediates.