Site-specific incorporation of a redox-active amino acid into proteins
Lital Alfonta1, Zhiwen Zhang, Sean Uryu
1Department of Chemistry and the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
Abstract:
The redox-active amino acid 3,4-dihydroxy-l-phenylalanine (DHP), which can undergo two-electron oxidation to a quinone, has been incorporated selectively and efficiently into proteins in Escherichia coli in response to a TAG codon. We have demonstrated that DHP can be oxidized electrochemically within the protein. The ability to incorporate a redox-active amino acid site specifically into proteins should facilitate the study of electron transfer in proteins, as well as enable the engineering of redox proteins with novel properties.
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