Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases and tRNAs for an Expanded Genetic Code: What Makes them Orthogonal?

Sergey V Melnikov; Dieter Söll

doi:10.3390/ijms20081929

Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases and tRNAs for an Expanded Genetic Code: What Makes them Orthogonal?

Int J Mol Sci. 2019 Apr 19;20(8):1929. doi: 10.3390/ijms20081929.

Authors

Sergey V Melnikov¹, Dieter Söll²

Affiliations

¹ Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA. sergey.melnikov@yale.edu.
² Department of Molecular Biophysics and Biochemistry, Department of Chemistry, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06511, USA. dieter.soll@yale.edu.

Abstract

In the past two decades, tRNA molecules and their corresponding aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRS) have been extensively used in synthetic biology to genetically encode post-translationally modified and unnatural amino acids. In this review, we briefly examine one fundamental requirement for the successful application of tRNA/aaRS pairs for expanding the genetic code. This requirement is known as "orthogonality"-the ability of a tRNA and its corresponding aaRS to interact exclusively with each other and avoid cross-reactions with additional types of tRNAs and aaRSs in a given organism.

Keywords: aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases; expanded genetic code; orthogonal translation systems; synthetic biology; tRNA.

Publication types

Review

MeSH terms

Amino Acyl-tRNA Synthetases / chemistry
Amino Acyl-tRNA Synthetases / genetics*
Genetic Code*
Genetic Engineering
RNA, Transfer / chemistry
RNA, Transfer / genetics*
Synthetic Biology

Substances

RNA, Transfer
Amino Acyl-tRNA Synthetases

Abstract

Publication types

MeSH terms

Substances

Grants and funding