Single-molecule FRET and crosslinking studies in structural biology enabled by noncanonical amino acids

Contemporary structural biology research promises more than just static snap-shots of molecular machineries. This goal is not just facilitated by combining different structural biology techniques, but also by new tools from the field of protein and genetic engineering, as well as from chemistry. Genetic encoding of noncanonical amino acids (ncAAs) through codon-suppression technology provides an excellent opportunity to probe biomolecules using different structural biology methods. In this article, we review the applications of ncAA incorporation into proteins for determining structural information through various techniques with the main focus on crosslinking mass spectrometry and single-molecule FRET-based techniques. Furthermore, advances and limitations of the incorporation of multiple ncAAs are discussed, with respect to design of an ideal host organism for modern and integrative structural biology research.