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Base instincts

Synthorx's unnatural base pair generates proteins with synthetic amino acids

September 22, 2016 7:00 AM UTC

Although unnatural amino acids can help synthetic biologists create improved versions of therapeutic proteins, they have been difficult to integrate into conventional E.coli-based manufacturing systems. Synthorx is adding two synthetic bases, dubbed X and Y, to the A-C-G-T alphabet and created a strain of E. colithat incorporates the nucleotides into cellular processes to produce synthetic proteins by design.

The technology is based on the work of founder and director Floyd Romesberg, professor of chemistry at The Scripps Research Institute, who developed X and Y (d5SICS and dNaM) - two unnatural nucleotides that form X-Y base pairs similar to A-T and C-G. ...