Enzyme engineering by directed evolution and applications in cellular imaging and proteomic mapping

Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Chemistry, 2016.

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Lam, Stephanie S. (Stephanie Shih-Min)
Other Authors: Alice Y. Ting.
Format: Thesis
Language:eng
Published: Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/105028
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author Lam, Stephanie S. (Stephanie Shih-Min)
author2 Alice Y. Ting.
author_facet Alice Y. Ting.
Lam, Stephanie S. (Stephanie Shih-Min)
author_sort Lam, Stephanie S. (Stephanie Shih-Min)
collection MIT
description Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Chemistry, 2016.
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spelling mit-1721.1/1050282019-04-12T16:23:10Z Enzyme engineering by directed evolution and applications in cellular imaging and proteomic mapping Lam, Stephanie S. (Stephanie Shih-Min) Alice Y. Ting. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemistry. Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Chemistry. Chemistry. Thesis: Ph. D., Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Department of Chemistry, 2016. Cataloged from PDF version of thesis. Includes bibliographical references. A thorough understanding of biological systems on a molecular level requires tools to study individual protein components within the native cellular context. A wide panoply of enzyme-mediated labeling methodologies have been developed that couple the power of enzyme specificity with the functional diversity of small molecules to specifically tag proteins within the crowded heterogeneous intracellular environment for a wide array of applications including imaging by fluorescence or electron microscopy, and isolation and identification by mass spectrometry. Towards this end, a common theme in the design of new enzyme tools has been the repurposing of enzymes away from their natural chemical substrates to derivatives that provide more useful properties such as fluorescence or high-affinity handles. Many current directed evolution methods focus on the detection of product formation, but have limited ability to address improvements in catalytic efficiency. As a result, many of the developed methods may work in permissive proof-of-concept demonstrations in model cell lines under overexpression conditions, but lack sufficient activity to generate detectable signal in more relevant biological systems in which enzyme expression levels are more restricted. The goal of this thesis is to explore the development and application of directed evolution methods towards the challenging problem of improving enzyme catalysis. We attempted to design a new phage-display directed evolution platform for improving enzyme turnover of the E. coli biotin ligase BirA, but found that our separation based on ultracentrifugation lacked the necessary sensitivity to discriminate between levels of enzyme turnover. We also looked at applications of the specific labeling of BirA and promiscuous labeling of horseradish peroxidase towards capturing fluorescent live cellular migration tracks on the traversed extracellular matrix. We then utilized yeast display to develop a selection method for evolving peroxidases with improved activity to address the sensitivity limitations of the previously developed enhanced ascorbate peroxidase (APEX) tag from the Ting lab used for electron microscopy and spatial proteomics. This led to the successful discovery and characterization of the highly-active APEX2 which enabled advancements in mitochondrial and mitochondria-endoplasmic reticulum junction biology. by Stephanie S. Lam. Ph. D. 2016-10-25T19:50:11Z 2016-10-25T19:50:11Z 2016 2016 Thesis http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/105028 959555570 eng M.I.T. theses are protected by copyright. They may be viewed from this source for any purpose, but reproduction or distribution in any format is prohibited without written permission. See provided URL for inquiries about permission. http://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/7582 184 pages application/pdf Massachusetts Institute of Technology
spellingShingle Chemistry.
Lam, Stephanie S. (Stephanie Shih-Min)
Enzyme engineering by directed evolution and applications in cellular imaging and proteomic mapping
title Enzyme engineering by directed evolution and applications in cellular imaging and proteomic mapping
title_full Enzyme engineering by directed evolution and applications in cellular imaging and proteomic mapping
title_fullStr Enzyme engineering by directed evolution and applications in cellular imaging and proteomic mapping
title_full_unstemmed Enzyme engineering by directed evolution and applications in cellular imaging and proteomic mapping
title_short Enzyme engineering by directed evolution and applications in cellular imaging and proteomic mapping
title_sort enzyme engineering by directed evolution and applications in cellular imaging and proteomic mapping
topic Chemistry.
url http://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/105028
work_keys_str_mv AT lamstephaniesstephanieshihmin enzymeengineeringbydirectedevolutionandapplicationsincellularimagingandproteomicmapping