Scratching the Itch

Methods used to engineer proteins with improved or novel functions by recombining two genes of interest depend on greater than 70% sequence homology between the two genes, a requirement that significantly limits the diversity of protein production. Now researchers at Pennsylvania State University have described a method to generate libraries with multiple recombinations independent of sequence homology.

"The method itself is unlimited and completely independent of sequence identity," said Stefan Lutz, the primary author of the report last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. As proof of this lack of threshold, Lutz told BioCentury that libraries had been constructed using two genes with less than 30% homology...