Davis Brian K
Research Foundation of Southern California Inc., 5580 La Jolla Boulevard, #60, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
Bioessays. 2004 Feb;26(2):111-5. doi: 10.1002/bies.10415.
Proteins account for the catalytic and structural versatility displayed by all cells, yet they are assembled from a set of only 20 common amino acids. With few exceptions, only 61 nucleotide triplets also direct incorporation of these amino acids. Endeavors to expand the genetic code recently progressed to nucleus-containing cells, after Chin et al.1 transferred Escherichia coli genes for a mutant tyrosine-adaptor molecule and its synthetase into Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Transformed yeast cells were produced that exhibit efficient site-specific incorporation of non-biotic amino acids into proteins. This makes it likely that code complexity can be elevated experimentally in mammals.
蛋白质体现了所有细胞所具有的催化和结构多样性，但它们却是由仅20种常见氨基酸组成的集合装配而成。除少数例外，也仅有61种核苷酸三联体指导这些氨基酸的掺入。在钱恩等人将大肠杆菌中一个突变型酪氨酸衔接分子及其合成酶的基因转入酿酒酵母后，近期扩展遗传密码的努力已推进到含细胞核的细胞。产生了经过转化的酵母细胞，这些细胞能将非生物氨基酸高效位点特异性地掺入蛋白质中。这使得在哺乳动物中通过实验提高密码复杂性成为可能。
