Proteins from an unevolved library of de novo designed sequences bind a range of small molecules.

ABSTRACT: The availability of large collections of de novo designed proteins presents new opportunities to harness novel macromolecules for synthetic biological functions. Many of these new functions will require binding to small molecules. Is the ability to bind small molecules a property that arises only in response to biological selection or computational design? Or alternatively, is small molecule binding a property of folded proteins that occurs readily amidst collections of unevolved sequences? These questions can be addressed by assessing the binding potential of de novo proteins that are designed to fold into stable structures, but are "naïve" in the sense that they (i) share no significant sequence similarity with natural proteins and (ii) were neither selected nor designed to bind small mo

SUBMITTER: Cherny I 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4104770 | biostudies-literature | 2012 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature