showing 2 related works from this author
Engineering the smallest transcription factor: accelerated evolution of a 63-amino acid peptide dual activator-repressor
2019
Transcription factors control gene expression in all life. This raises the question of what is the smallest protein that can support such activity. In nature, Cro from bacteriophage λ is the smallest known repressor (66 amino acids; a.a.) but activators are typically much larger (e.g. λ cI, 237 a.a.). Indeed, previous efforts to engineer a minimal activator from Cro resulted in no activityin vivo. In this study, we show that directed evolution results in a new Cro activator-repressor that functions as efficiently as λ cI,in vivo. To achieve this, we develop Phagemid-Assisted Continuous Evolution: PACEmid. We find that a peptide as small as 63-a.a. functions efficiently as an activator and/o…
Accelerated evolution of a minimal 63–amino acid dual transcription factor
2020
Transcription factors control gene expression in all life. This raises the question of what is the smallest protein that can support such activity. In nature, Cro from bacteriophage λ is one of the smallest known repressors (66 amino acids), and activators are typically much larger (e.g., λ cI, 237 amino acids). Previous efforts to engineer a minimal activator from λ Cro resulted in no activity in vivo in cells. In this study, we show that directed evolution results in a new Cro activator-repressor that functions as efficiently as λ cI in vivo. To achieve this, we develop phagemid-assisted continuous evolution (PACEmid). We find that a peptide as small as 63 amino acids functions efficientl…