Harvard University researchers have developed a method to use the properties of bacterial viruses called phages that are replaced rapidly to speed up changes in biomolecules during clinical tests.
The research paper has appeared in the journal Nature, while the research could help customize pharmaceuticals and research tools from proteins, and compounds such as nucleic acids cultured in the lab.
The team, led by Professor David R. Liu, says the phage-assisted constant evolution or PACE is a rapid process and easy to initiate. Liu, a chemistry and chemical biology professor at Harvard and a researcher at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute says the research helps rapid production of proteins or nucleic acids displaying target properties.
Liu and team members Kevin M. Esvelt and Jacob C. Carlson changed up to 60 rounds of protein evolutions a day by connecting lab evolution to the life cycle lasting 10 minutes of a virus infecting bacteria. The short life span of the phage makes it suitable for rapid protein evolution. The PACE system deploys E. coli host cells to generate the proteins that produce phage, and enable phage-carrying genes that encode target molecules to grow. PACE could produce an enzyme in three tests displaying a desired action within a week, deriving 200 protein evolution rounds.
Liu's technique uses available substances and is designed to oppose cheater molecules that escape the selection process. The selection stringency and its mutation rate can be easily monitored. According to the team, the success of this technique is based on the rounds performed and the evolution process could increase its effectiveness.
This was funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, the Hertz Foundation, the National Science Foundation, and the Harvard Chemical Biology Graduate Program.
Source: http://www.harvard.edu