Sequence-Specific Peptide Synthesis by an Artificial Small-Molecule Machine

• Autores: Bartosz Lewandowski, Guillaume De Bo, Marcus Papmeyer
• Localización: Science, ISSN 0036-8075, Vol. 339, Nº 6116, 2013, págs. 190-193
• Idioma: inglés
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• Resumen

  • The ribosome builds proteins by joining together amino acids in an order determined by messenger RNA. Here, we report on the design, synthesis, and operation of an artificial small-molecule machine that travels along a molecular strand, picking up amino acids that block its path, to synthesize a peptide in a sequence-specific manner. The chemical structure is based on a rotaxane, a molecular ring threaded onto a molecular axle. The ring carries a thiolate group that iteratively removes amino acids in order from the strand and transfers them to a peptide-elongation site through native chemical ligation. The synthesis is demonstrated with ~1018 molecular machines acting in parallel; this process generates milligram quantities of a peptide with a single sequence confirmed by tandem mass spectrometry.