Non-Canonical Amino Acids in Analyses of Protease Structure and Function.

ABSTRACT: All known organisms encode 20 canonical amino acids by base triplets in the genetic code. The cellular translational machinery produces proteins consisting mainly of these amino acids. Several hundred natural amino acids serve important functions in metabolism, as scaffold molecules, and in signal transduction. New side chains are generated mainly by post-translational modifications, while others have altered backbones, such as the β- or γ-amino acids, or they undergo stereochemical inversion, e.g., in the case of D-amino acids. In addition, the number of non-canonical amino acids has further increased by chemical syntheses. Since many of these non-canonical amino acids confer resistance to proteolytic degradation, they are potential protease inhibitors and tools for specificity profiling

SUBMITTER: Goettig P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10531186 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature