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Chemical modification of proteins is an important tool for probing natural systems, creating therapeutic conjugates and generating novel protein constructs. Site-selective reactions require exquisite control over both chemo- and regioselectivity, under ambient, aqueous conditions. There are now various methods for achieving selective modification of both natural and unnatural amino acids--each with merits and limitations--providing a 'toolkit' that until 20 years ago was largely limited to reactions at nucleophilic cysteine and lysine residues. If applied in a biologically benign manner, this chemistry could form the basis of true Synthetic Biology.

Original publication

DOI

10.1038/ncomms5740

Type

Journal article

Journal

Nat Commun

Publication Date

05/09/2014

Volume

5

Keywords

Amino Acids, Carbon, Cysteine, Models, Molecular, Molecular Structure, Proteins, Synthetic Biology