Introducing noncanonical amino acids for studying and engineering bacterial microcompartments

Bacterial microcompartments (BMCs) with selectively permeable shells and encapsulated enzyme cores are well suited candidates for nano-bioreactors because of their advantages of enhancing pathway flux and protection against toxic products. To better study and engineer protein-based BMCs, a series of protein chemistry approaches are adopted. As one of the most advanced techniques, genetic code expansion can introduce various noncanonical amino acids (ncAAs) with diverse functional groups into target proteins, thus providing powerful tools for protein studies and engineering. This review summarizes and proposes useful tools based on current development of the genetic code expansion technique towards challenges in BMC studies and engineering.

Automated summary

This review summarizes useful tools based on the genetic code expansion technique for tackling challenges in studying and engineering BMCs. By introducing various noncanonical amino acids, genetic code expansion provides powerful tools for protein research and engineering.