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Updated: Apr 14, 2026

Site Specific Lysine Acetylation of Histones for Nucleosome Reconstitution using Genetic Code Expansion in Escherichia coli
Published on: December 26, 2020
Genetic Incorporation of ε-N-2-Hydroxyisobutyryl-lysine into Recombinant Histones
Han Xiao1, Weimin Xuan1, Sida Shao1
1Department of Chemistry and the Skaggs Institute for Chemical Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, California 92037, United States.
Abstract:
Here, we report the evolution of an orthogonal amber suppressor pyrrolysyl-tRNA synthetase (PylRS)/tRNACUA(Pyl) pair that genetically encodes the post-translationally modified amino acid, ε-N-2-hydroxyisobutyryl-lysine (HibK), in bacteria and mammalian cells. HibK is a new type of histone mark that is widely distributed in histone proteins. The ability to site-specifically incorporate HibK into proteins provides a useful tool to probe the biological function of this newly identified post-translational modification.
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