Nonnatural Amino Acid Technology Team

We plan to genetically encode novel and useful amino acids, in order to increase the functional and structural variety in recombinant proteins and provide unique technical supports for structural biology and epigenetics drug development, and also plan to carry forward the cell-free translation technology.

Research Fields

Biology & Biochemistry / Molecular Biology & Genetics

Research Subjects

• Engineering the genetic code in living cells
• Developing novel proteins with non-natural amino acids
• Developing "control molecules" to regulate cellular pathways

Publications

1. Kusano, S., Kukimoto-Niino, M., Hino, N., Ohsawa, N., Ikutani, M., Takaki, S., Sakamoto, K.,　Hara-Yokoyama, M., Shirouzu, M., Takatsu, K. and Yokoyama, S.:
   "Structural basis of interleukin-5 dimer recognition by its α receptor"
   Protein Sci. 21, 850-864 (2012).
2. Ohtake, K., Sato, A., Mukai, T., Hino, N., Yokoyama, S. and Sakamoto, K.:
   "Efficient decoding of the UAG triplet as a full-fledged sense codon enhances the growth of a prfA-deficient strain of Escherichia coli"
   J. Bacteriol. 194, 2606-2613 (2012).
3. Sato, S., Mimasu, S., Sato, A., Hino, N., Sakamoto, K., Umehara, T., Yokoyama, S.:
   "Crystallographic study of a site-specifically cross-linked protein complex with a genetically incorporated photoreactive amino acid"
   Biochemistry 50, 250-257 (2011).
4. Hayashi, A., Hino, N., Kobayashi, T., Arai, R., Shirouzu, M., Yokoyama, S. and Sakamoto, K.:
   "Dissecting cell signaling pathways with genetically encoded 3-iodo-L-tyrosine"
   Chembiochem. 12, 387-389 (2011).
5. Tagami, S., Sekine, S., Kumarevel, T., Hino, N., Murayama, Y., Kamegamori, S., Yamamoto, M., Sakamoto, K. and Yokoyama, S:
   "Crystal structure of bacterial RNA polymerase bound with a transcription inhibitor protein"
   Nature 468, 978-982 (2010).
6. Mukai, T., Hayashi, A., Iraha, F., Sato, A., Ohtake, K., Yokoyama, S. and Sakamoto, K:
   "Codon reassignment in the Escherichia coli genetic code"
   Nucleic Acids Res. 38, 8188-8195 (2010)
7. Iraha, F., Oki, K., Kobayashi, T., Ohno. S., Yokogawa, T., Nishikawa, K., Yokoyama, S. and Sakamoto, K.:
   "Functional replacement of the endogenous tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase-tRNA^Tyr pair by the archaeal tyrosine pair in Escherichia coli for genetic code expansion"
   Nucleic Acids Res. 38, 3682-3691 (2010).
8. Oki, K., Sakamoto, K., Kobayashi, T., Sasaki, H. M. and Yokoyama, S.:
   "Transplantation of a tyrosine editing domain into a tyrosyl-tRNA synthetase variant enhances its specificity for a tyrosine analog"
   Proc. Natl Acad. Sci. USA 105, 13298-13303 (2008).
9. Hino, N., Hayashi, A., Sakamoto, K. and Yokoyama, S.:
   "Site-specific incorporation of non-natural amino acids into proteins in the mammalian cells with an expanded genetic code"
   Nat. protocol 1, 2957-2962 (2007).
10. Hino, N., Okazaki, Y., Kobayashi, T., Hayashi, A., Sakamoto, K. and Yokoyama, S.:
    "Protein photo-cross-linking in mammalian cells by site-specific incorporation of a photoreactive amino acid"
    Nat. Methods 2, 201-206 (2005).