Genetically Incorporating Two Distinct Post-translational Modifications into One Protein Simultaneously

by Venkat, Sumana; Sturges, Jourdan; Stahman, Alleigh; Gregory, Caroline; Gan, Qinglei; Fan, Chenguang

Post-translational modifications (PTMs) play important roles in regulating a variety of biological processes. To facilitate PTM studies, the genetic code expansion strategy has been utilized to cotranslationally incorporate individual PTMs such as acetylation and phosphorylation into proteins at specific sites. However, recent studies have demonstrated that PTMs actually work together to regulate protein functions and structures. Thus, simultaneous incorporation of multiple distinct PTMs into one protein is highly desirable. In this study, we utilized the genetic incorporation systems of phosphoserine and acetyllysine to install both phosphorylation and acetylation into target proteins simultaneously in Escherichia coli. And we used this system to study the effect of coexisting acetylation and phosphorylation on malate dehydrogenase, demonstrating a practical application of this system in biochemical studies. Furthermore, we tested the mutual orthogonality of three widely used genetic incorporation systems, indicating the possibility of incorporating three distinct PTMs into one protein simultaneously.

Journal
ACS Synthetic Biology
Volume
7
Issue
2
Year
2018
Start Page
689-695
URL
https://dx.doi.org/10.1021/acssynbio.7b00408
ISBN/ISSN
2161-5063
DOI
10.1021/acssynbio.7b00408