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Updated: Jul 4, 2026

Sequence-specific Labeling of Nucleic Acids and Proteins with Methyltransferases and Cofactor Analogues
Published on: November 22, 2014
N-Myristoyl transferase-mediated protein labelling in vivo
William P Heal1, Sasala R Wickramasinghe, Robin J Leatherbarrow
1Department of Chemistry, South Kensington Campus, Imperial College, London, UK SW7 2AZ.
Abstract:
N-Myristoyl transferase-mediated labelling using a substrate modified with an azide or alkyne tag is described as an efficient and site-selective method for the introduction of a bioorthogonal tag at the N-terminus of a recombinant protein. The procedure may be performed in vitro, or in a single over-expression/tagging step in vivo in bacteria; tagged proteins may then be captured using Staudinger-Bertozzi or 'click' chemistry protocols to introduce a secondary label for downstream analysis. The straightforward synthesis of the chemical and molecular biological tools described should enable their use in a wide range of N-terminal labelling applications.
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