Recently, Professor Hai Xiong’s group from the Institute for Advanced Study published a paper titled Multiple Site-Specific One-Pot Synthesis of Two Proteins by the Bio-Orthogonal Flexizyme System in an important international biotechnology journal called Frontiers in Bioengineering and Biotechnology (2018 IF=5.12, second district of Chinese Academy of Sciences).

As we all know, Lysine acetylation is a reversible post-translational modification (PTM) vastly employed in many biological events, including regulating gene expression and dynamic transitions in chromatin remodeling. In this research, Prof. Xiong’s group has developed the first one-pot bio-orthogonal flexizyme system in which both acetyl-lysine (AcK) and non-hydrolysable thioacetyl-lysine (ThioAcK) were site-specifically incorporated into human histone H3 and H4 at different lysine positions in vitro, either individually or in pairs. In addition, the high accuracy of this system moving toward one-pot synthesis of desired histone variants is also reported. This paper is a further expansion of the previous work of the research group (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2016, 55, 4083-4086).

The first author of the paper is post-doctor Qiuyun Xiao from the IAS of Shenzhen University. Undergraduate student Zihan Liu and postgraduate student Yan Zhao are the second and third authors respectively. Professor Hai Xiong from IAS is the only corresponding author and Shenzhen University is the only completion unit. This work was supported by the grants from the Shenzhen basic research - free exploration project and the Shenzhen innovation and entrepreneurship plan for overseas high-level talents - peacock technology and innovation project.

DOI: 10.3389/fbioe.2020.00037