LynD Substrate Tolerance for Thiazole Installation in mRNA Display (2024)

Undergraduate: Emma Steude

Faculty Advisor: Albert Bowers
Department: Chemistry

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mRNA display is a powerful high-throughput screening technique used to identify potential therapeutics from diverse libraries of peptides. Natural products provide insights into therapeutically relevant moieties that may be incorporated into mRNA display peptide libraries. For example, thiazoles are amide isosteres with beneficial drug-like properties that are found in many natural products. LynD, the cyclodehydratase enzyme in aesturamide biosynthesis, may be integrated into mRNA display to develop thiazole-containing libraries, but LynD must tolerate many diverse substrates to function with mRNA display. By exploring the substrate tolerance of LynD, more diverse mRNA display screening libraries may be created, expanding the potential of peptide-based therapeutics in drug discovery.