What is it about?
Cheap DNA with any sequence is used to modify bacterial DNA in such a way that the bacteria are forced to translate the DNA sequence into a peptide sequence. The trick is to design the DNA sequence to make a functional peptide. This can be done as the quality of the link between structure and function improves, which is why it is important the technique allows for the easy conversion of DNA into peptides to make it possible to test a lot if ideas rapidly and cheaply.
Featured Image
Photo by Ekke Krosing on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Proteins are the workhorses of living systems. Their smaller cousins, peptides, have many roles, including as hormones, neurotransmitters and antibiotics. While the structures of many proteins have been used to understand function, the smaller peptides tend to have less well defined structures, and hence, structure and function are not well correlated. This work begins to remedy this by making it easy to first generate almost any peptide, and then test it in a host of environments for its potential function.
Perspectives
The ability to design a DNA sequence and have it become a real peptide in a matter of a week or two is astonishing. Being able to determine the chemical properties of the peptide and compare it to a mutation, in order to test a hypothesis about the peptide, is equally astonishing. This article is a way to communicate this amazing technology, with a view to making it possible for anyone interested in peptide chemistry to advance the field economically.
Jonathan Filley
Oligometrics, Inc.
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: A convenient five-segment cassette procedure for DNA insertions coding for novel peptides, PLoS ONE, July 2024, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0307713.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
