A thermostable d-polymerase for mirror-image PCR.

ABSTRACT: Biological evolution resulted in a homochiral world in which nucleic acids consist exclusively of d-nucleotides and proteins made by ribosomal translation of l-amino acids. From the perspective of synthetic biology, however, particularly anabolic enzymes that could build the mirror-image counterparts of biological macromolecules such as l-DNA or l-RNA are lacking. Based on a convergent synthesis strategy, we have chemically produced and characterized a thermostable mirror-image polymerase that efficiently replicates and amplifies mirror-image (l)-DNA. This artificial enzyme, dubbed d-Dpo4-3C, is a mutant of Sulfolobus solfataricus DNA polymerase IV consisting of 352 d-amino acids. d-Dpo4-3C was reliably deployed in classical polymerase chain reactions (PCR) and it was used to assemble a fi

SUBMITTER: Pech A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5605242 | biostudies-literature | 2017 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature