Mutagenesis, artificial

In order to understand the role of flavonoids in pollen, flavonoid-deficient mutants have been produced through artificial methods, such as cosuppression, antisense expression, chemical mutagenesis, and ionizing radiation. Examples include and A. thali-... 

Letondor, C., Humbert, N. and Ward, TR. (2005) Artificial metaUoenzymes based on biotin-avidin technology for the enantioselective reduction of ketones by transfer hydrogenation. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 102, 4683-4687 Letondor, C., Pordea, A., Humbert, N., Ivanova, A., Mazurek, S., Novic, M. and Ward, TR. (2006) Artificial transfer hydrogenases based on the biotin-(strept)avidin technology Fine tuning the selectivity by saturation mutagenesis of the host protein. J. Am. Chem. Soc., 128, 8320-8328. 

Three main tendencies have been underlined in recent studies of structure and action mechanism ofbacterial photosynthetic reaction centers. The crystallographic structure of the reaction centers from Rps. viridis and Rb. spheroids was initially determined to be 2.8 and 3 A resolutions (Michel and Deisenhofer et al., 1985 Allen et al., 1986). Resolution and refinement of these structures have been subsequently extended to 2.2, 2.3 and 2.6 A. (Rees et al., 1989 Stowell et al., 1997, Fyfe and Johns, 2000 Rutherford and Faller, 2001). Investigations of the electronic structure of donor and acceptor centers in the ground and exited states by modern physical methods with a combination ofpico-and femtosecond kinetic techniques have become more precise and elaborate. Extensive experimental and theoretical investigations on the role of orbital overlap and protein dynamics in the processes of electron and proton transfer have been done. All the above-mentioned research directions are accompanied by extensive use of methods of sit-directed mutagenesis and substitution of native pigments for artificial compounds of different redox potential. 

II) Resistant isolates are collected from the field rather than from assays with artificial mutagenesis or adaptation made under laboratory conditions. Well characterized resistant isolates are needed, preferentially single spore isolates, which should represent the majority of the resistant field population. 

Covalent attachment has also been exploited for protein incorporation of non-native redox active cofactors. A photosensitive rhodium complex has been covalently attached to a cysteine near the heme of cytochrome c (67). The heme of these cytochrome c bioconjugates was photoreducible, which makes it possible for these artificial proteins to be potentially useful in electronic devices. The covalent anchoring, via a disulfide bond, of a redox active ferrocene cofactor has been demonstrated in the protein azurin (68). Not only did conjugation to the protein provide the cofactor with increased water stability and solubility, but it also provided, by means of mutagenesis, a means of tuning the reduction potential of the cofactor. The protein-aided transition of organometallic species into aqueous solution via increased solubility, stability and tuning are important benefits to the construction of artificial metalloproteins. 

Letondor C, Pordea A, Humbert N, Ivanova A, Mazurek S, Novic M, Ward TR. Artificial transfer hydrogenases based on the biotin-(strept)avidin technology fine tuning the selectivity by saturation mutagenesis of the host protein. J. Am. Chem. Soc. 2006 128 8320-8328. 

Artificial Selection y Wildtype Quasispectes fSite specific Mutagenesis) V Natural Selection "m" outgrows "k"... 

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