Unnatural cyclic amino acids push limits of ribosome
Expanding repertoire of monomers for ribosome-mediated polymerisation is boon for scientists wanting to harness nature’s protein factories
Scientists have shown that bacterial ribosomes can incorporate cyclic beta amino acids into polypeptides. By expanding the set of monomers that nature’s translation machinery is understood to work with, the work could help scientists produce exotic proteins or peptide-based drugs.