Scientists succeed in multiple insertion of synthetic amino acids

A breakthrough in biochemical research may have been achieved as scientists have successfully inserted three separate synthetic amino acids into a protein in a single experiment.

The achievement overshadows scientists' previous capability to replace only one naturally occurring amino acid with a synthetic equivalent at any one time.

"The research area of genetic code engineering and code extension has, with this result, reached a new development phase," says head of the research group Nediljko Budisa.

Research was conducted at the Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry and aimed to insert multiple amino acids, outside of the 20 that occur naturally within proteins, in order to change more than one property of a protein at a time.

With several hundred naturally occurring amino acids outside of proteins and more which can be artificially created within the laboratory, the opportunities for future research could be vast.

The Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry addresses a variety of research topics, including X-ray crystallography as a means of analysing quality control and degradation of RNAs.