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Updated: Jan 10, 2026

Site Specific Lysine Acetylation of Histones for Nucleosome Reconstitution using Genetic Code Expansion in Escherichia coli
Published on: December 26, 2020
An archaeal genetic code with all TAG codons as pyrrolysine
Veronika Kivenson1, Samantha L Peters2, Guillaume Borrel3
1Innovative Genomics Institute, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, CA, USA.
Abstract:
Multiple genetic codes developed during the evolution of eukaryotes and bacteria, yet no alternative genetic code is known for archaea. We used proteomics to confirm our prediction that certain archaea consistently incorporate pyrrolysine (Pyl) at TAG codons, supporting an alternative archaeal genetic code that we designate the Pyl code. This genetic code has 62 sense codons encoding 21 amino acids. In contrast to monophyletic genetic code distributions in bacteria, the archaeal Pyl code occurs sporadically, indicating that it arose independently in multiple lineages. We discovered that more than 1800 archaeal proteins contain Pyl, increasing the number of such proteins by two orders of magnitude. Additionally, five Pyl transfer RNA (tRNA) pyrrolysyl-tRNA synthetase pairs from Pyl-code archaea were used to introduce Pyl analogs into proteins in Escherichia coli.
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