Chorismate selection system

Over the past decade, several strains of yeast [43, 44] and E. coli [45, 46] have been engineered that lack chorismate mutase. A typical bacterial selection system is depicted schematically in Fig. 3.5. It is based on E. coli strain KA12 [45], which has deletions of the chromosomal genes for both bifunctional chorismate mutases (chorismate mutase-prephenate dehydrogenase and chorismate mutase-prephenate dehydratase). Monofunctional versions of prephenate dehydratase [47] and prephenate dehydrogenase [48] from other organisms are supplied by the plasmid pKIMP-UAUC, leaving the cells deficient only in chorismate mutase activity [45]. 

Fig. 3.5. An engineered E. coli selection system lacking endogenous chorismate mutase activity [45]. The genes encoding the bifunctional enzymes chorismate mutase-prephenate dehydrogenase and chorismate mutase-prephenate dehydratase were deleted, and monofunctional versions of the dehydrogenase and dehydratase were supplied on plasmid pKIMP-UAUC. Poten-...

It is in the realm of very large combinatorial libraries that selection rather than screening gains crucial importance. As the focus shifts from randomizing an eight-residue peptide to a 100 amino acid protein (the typical size of a small functional domain, for example a chorismate mutase domain), the number of sequence permutations rises to an astronomical 20100. The ability to assay even a tiny fraction of this sequence space in directed molecular evolution experiments demands selection, even though initial development of an appropriate system may be considerably more involved than the setup of a screening procedure. 

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