It's a dogma taught in every introductory biology class: Proteins are composed of combinations of 20 different amino acids, arranged into diverse sequences like words. But researchers trying to ...

Pyrrolysine is an important component of methyltransferase enzymes, which the archaea use to metabolize methylamine in the environment. “The need for that metabolism and availability of the machinery ...

Scientists trying to engineer biologic molecules with new functions have long felt limited by the 20 amino-acid building blocks. Researchers are working to develop ways of putting new building ...

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Vol. 104, No. 27 (Jul. 3, 2007), pp. 11268-11273 (6 pages) Pyrrolysine (Pyl), the 22nd natural amino acid and ...

DNA and RNA sequencing has become the new watchword for the biological researchers, as this tells them exactly what is going on at cellular level in health and disease. However, it is a partial ...

Humans possess six forms of the protein actin, which perform essential functions in the body. Two in particular, β-actin and γ-actin, are nearly identical, only differing by four amino acids. Yet ...

The genetic code is the recipe for life, and provides the instructions for how to make proteins, generally using just 20 amino acids. But certain groups of microbes have an expanded genetic code, in ...

Proteins are built by mixing and matching amino acids, but researchers want to create new functions by adding noncanonical amino acids (ncAAs). However, this process often requires complex whole ...

Researchers have engineered bacteria to synthesize an amino acid that contains a rare functional group that others have shown to have implications in the regulation of our immune system. The ...