Directed Evolution of Orthogonal Pyrrolysyl-tRNA Synthetases in Escherichia coli for the Genetic Encoding of Noncanonical Amino Acids

The directed evolution of orthogonal aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases (aaRS) for the genetic encoding of noncanonical amino acids (ncAA) has paved the way for the site-specific incorporation of >170 functionally diverse ncAAs into proteins in a large number of organisms [1, 2]. Here, we describe the directed evolution of orthogonal pyrrolysyl-tRNA synthetase (PylRS) mutants with new amino acid selectivities from libraries using a two-step selection protocol based on chloramphenicol and barnase reporter systems. Although this protocol focuses on the evolution of PylRS variants, this procedure can be universally employed to evolve orthogonal aaRS.