An Amino Acid-Swapped Genetic Code
Tomoshige Fujino, Masahiro Tozaki, Hiroshi Murakami
Abstract
Preventing the escape of hazardous genes from genetically modified organisms (GMOs) into the environment is one of the most important issues in biotechnology research. Various strategies were developed to create "genetic firewalls" that prevent the leakage of GMOs; however, they were not specially designed to prevent the escape of genes. To address this issue, we developed amino acid (AA)-swapped genetic codes orthogonal to the standard genetic code, namely SL (Ser and Leu were swapped) and SLA genetic codes (Ser, Leu, and Ala were swapped). From mRNAs encoded by the AA-swapped genetic codes, functional proteins were only synthesized in translation systems featuring the corresponding genetic codes. These results clearly demonstrated the orthogonality of the AA-swapped genetic codes against the standard genetic code and their potential to function as "genetic firewalls for genes". Furthermore, we propose "a codon-bypass strategy" to develop a GMO with an AA-swapped genetic code.