Re: Functional proteins from a random library

From: Todd S. Greene (tgreene@usxchange.net)
Date: Fri Apr 06 2001 - 09:49:37 EDT

  • Next message: Howard J. Van Till: "Re: Functional proteins from a random library"

    Hi, Preston.

    Is this a reference to what you're referring to?

       nature science update, 3/5/01
       lifelines: Missing links made simple
       http://www.nature.com/nsu/010308/010308-5.html

    Todd S. Greene

    ###### Preston Garrison, 4/5/01 10:39 PM ######
    For those who might be interested in the question of how rare are
    functional protein sequences among the huge number of possible
    sequences, there is a breakthrough paper in this week's Nature. The
    authors have solved a number of technical problems to create a library
    of ~10^13 mRNAs encoding proteins 80 amino acids long. This is a much
    larger library than is obtainable by other approaches in this field.
    They have arranged it so that after in vitro translation into protein,
    the mRNA and protein remain connected to each other, enabling the
    association of a protein function with an amplifyable RNA sequence.
    Using this system they found 4 sequence classes of ATP binding proteins
    in their library, none of which seems to be related to known biological
    sequences. The highest affinity binding was 100 nM, which is quite
    respectable.

    This is only the beginning of what should be very interesting results
    from this system. If it turns out to be possible to get lots of
    functional proteins out of libraries this size, it will not be good for
    Mr. Dembski's argument. (Although I guess he can then join Mr. Behe in
    saying that you can't get multiprotein complexes.)

    (So far as I know, none of this work was done by physicists. Sorry,
    Moorad ;)

    Preston Garrison, Ph.D.
    Instructor
    UTHSCSA-Biochem. Dept. Insert the usual disclaimers here.
    MSC 7760
    7703 Floyd Curl Dr.
    San Antonio, TX 78229-3900
    garrisonp@uthscsa.edu
    210-567-3702
    http://biochem.uthscsa.edu/~barnes



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