PT - JOURNAL ARTICLE AU - Po-Yi Huang AU - Fanny Wang AU - Kamesh Narasimhan AU - Kelly Chatman AU - John Aach AU - Sunia A. Trauger AU - Ryan Spoering AU - George M. Church TI - Toward D-peptide biosynthesis: Elongation Factor P enables ribosomal incorporation of consecutive D-amino acids AID - 10.1101/125930 DP - 2017 Jan 01 TA - bioRxiv PG - 125930 4099 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/04/10/125930.short 4100 - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/04/10/125930.full AB - To maintain stereospecific biochemistry in cells, living organisms have evolved mechanisms to exclude D-amino acids (DAA) in their protein synthesis machinery, which also limits our exploration of the realm of mirror-image molecules. Here, we show that high affinity between EF-Tu and aminoacyl-tRNA promotes D-amino acid incorporation. More strikingly, Elongation Factor P efficiently resolves peptidyl transferase stalling between two consecutive D-amino acids, and hence enables the translation of D-peptides.