Abstract
Protein expression with genetically encoded noncanonical amino acids (ncAAs) benefits a broad range of applications, from the discovery of biological therapeutics to fundamental biological studies. A major factor limiting the use of ncAAs is the lack of orthogonal translation systems (OTSs) that support efficient genetic code expansion at repurposed stop codons. Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRSs) have been extensively evolved in E. coli but are not always orthogonal in eukaryotes. In this work, we use a yeast display-based ncAA incorporation reporter platform with fluorescence-activated cell sorting to screen libraries of aaRSs in high throughput for 1) incorporation of ncAAs not previously encoded in yeast; 2) improvement of the performance of an existing aaRS; 3) highly selective OTSs capable of discriminating between closely related ncAA analogs; and 4) OTSs exhibiting enhanced polyspecificity to support translation with structurally diverse sets of ncAAs. The number of previously undiscovered aaRS variants we report in this work more than doubles the total number of translationally active aaRSs available for genetic code manipulation in yeast. The success of myriad screening strategies has important implications related to the fundamental properties and evolvability of aaRSs. Furthermore, access to OTSs with diverse activities and specific or polyspecific properties is invaluable for a range of applications within chemical biology, synthetic biology, and protein engineering.
Synopsis A range of flow cytometry-based screens yielded diverse translational machinery for genetic code expansion in yeast, facilitating access to new chemistries and tunable specificity profiles.
Competing Interest Statement
Authors J.T.S. and J.A.V. have submitted a patent application for the aaRS sequences identified in this work: U.S. Provisional Application No. 63/190,336. A version of this manuscript is included in the PhD thesis of J.T.S.
