Mutagenesis, protein function analysis

Johnson, K. A. and Benkovic, S. J. (1990). Analysis of Protein Function by Mutagenesis. The Enzymes. 19, San Diego, Academic Press. 159-211. 

Vieira, J., Schall, T. J., Corey, L., and Geballe, A. P. (1998). Functional analysis of the human cytomegalovirus US28 gene by insertion mutagenesis with the green fluorescent protein gene. J. Virol. 72, 8158-8165. 

Prior to the advent of site-directed mutagenesis as a viable technique for the production of specifically modified proteins, the last major event to exert a major influence on the study of protein structure and function was the development of X-ray diffraction analysis for the detailed structural analysis of macromolecules. In the intervening thirty years, the availability of protein structures obtained in this manner combined with a wide range of physical and chemical studies of these proteins allowed development of substantial insight into the relationship between the structure of a protein and its functional attributes. There was some reason to expect, therefore, that functional characterization of specifically mutated proteins based on understanding developed with more classical techniques should permit efficient confirmation of existing hypotheses, particularly for proteins for which the available literature is as extensive as that for cytochrome c. 

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