Site-Specific Interrogation of Protein Structure and Stability

Abstract

To execute their function or activity, proteins need to possess variability in local electrostatic environment, solvent accessibility, structure, and stability. However, assessing any protein property in a site-specific manner is not easy since native spectroscopic signals often lack the needed specificity. One strategy that overcomes this limitation is to use unnatural amino acids that exhibit distinct spectroscopic features. In this chapter, we describe several such unnatural amino acids (UAAs) and their respective applications in site-specific interrogation of protein structure and stability using standard biophysical methods, including circular dichroism (CD), infrared (IR), and fluorescence spectroscopies.

Keywords: Circular dichroism spectroscopy; Fluorescence spectroscopy; Infrared spectroscopy; Protein stability; Protein structure; Site-specific spectroscopic probe; Unnatural amino acid; Unnatural amino acid incorporation.