Synthetic biology techniques

To achieve economic and technical competitiveness, the current isoprene bioprocess needs further development, by construction of powerful microbial producers via synthetic biology techniques and bioengineering, reduction of the unit cost by the utilization of inexpensive feedstock, and upgradation of the gas-phase... 

During that time the involvement of nucleic acids as well as proteins in biological systems has evolved to very heightened levels of sophistication. The object of this account is not to examine and mimic these extraordinary, complex phenomena and structures in fine detail, but to present and compare alternate, abiotic chemistries that offer more simple, minimial mimicry of these biological targets in the context of new synthetic strategies. Exploration of this perspective offers both the promise of developing new synthetic approaches/techniques as well as a... 

The full synthetic potential of these biocataiysts is still beyond imagination. Especially, selective changes in the protein sequences by molecular biology techniques will give catalysts with tailor-made properties. Thus enzymes with enhanced stabilities and with defined high affinities toward unusual substrate patterns, retaining their exclusive regio- and stereoselectivity, may be created. 

World-wide, comparatively limited screening effort is devoted to discovery of completely new, so far unknown subclasses of enzymes (see also section 6). To make use of the opportunities still hidden in the vast unexplored part of biodiversity, the new approaches using molecular biology techniques can yield exciting and unexpected new types of biocatalysts with interesting synthetic abilities. In order to widen the application spectrum of chemistry and biotechnology, the screening efforts should be enforced in both academic and industrial research. 

One extreme view of chemical introduction of an extrinsic fluorescent probe is found in the case ofthe alanine derivative of the fluorophore 6-dimethylamino-2-acylnaphthalene (DAN) (Figure 4.23). This derivative fluorophore, given the trivial name Aladan, is incorporated into a polypeptide by solid-phase synthetic chemistry (although a molecular biology technique known as nonsense suppression is now available for the introduction of unnatural amino-acid residues into recombinant proteins). The fluorescent emission maximum (Tnax) of Aladan shifts dramatically on different solvent exposures, from 409 nm in heptane to 542 nm in water, yet at the same time remains only mildly changed by variations in pH or salt concentration. This compares to a maximum environment-mediated shift of around 40 nm for intrinsic tryptophan fluorescence. In addition, there is little spectral overlap between extrinsic Aladan fluorescence and intrinsic fluorescence from tryptophan or tyrosine. 

However, the molecular biology techniques that are most commonly used for drug target discovery are fully or partially based on synthetically designed oligo-... 

Nucleic Acid Polymers and DNA Synthetic Polymer Hybrid Materials Generated by Molecular Biology Techniques... 

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