Optimizing non-natural protein function with directed evolution

Developing technologies such as unnatural amino acid mutagenesis, non-natural cofactor engineering, and computational design are generating proteins with novel functions; these proteins, however, often do not reach performance targets and would benefit from further optimization. Evolutionary methods can complement these approaches: recent work combining unnatural amino acid mutagenesis and phage selection has created useful proteins of novel composition. Weak initial activity in a computationally designed enzyme has been improved by iterative rounds of mutagenesis and screening. A marriage of ingenuity and evolution will expand the scope of protein function well beyond Mother Nature's designs.