Exploring genetic codon expansion for unnatural amino acid incorporation in filamentous fungus Aspergillus nidulans

Abstract

Genetic code expansion technology allows the incorporation of unnatural amino acids (UAAs) into proteins, which is useful in protein engineering, synthetic biology, and gene therapy. Despite its potential applications in various species, filamentous fungi remain unexplored. This study aims to address this gap by developing these techniques in Aspergillus nidulans. We introduced an amber stop codon into a specific sequence within the reporter gene expressed in A. nidulans and replaced the anticodon of the fungal tRNA^Tyr with CUA. This resulted in the synthesis of the target protein, confirming the occurrence of amber suppression in the fungus. When exogenous E. coli tRNA^Tyr_CUA (Ec. tRNA^Tyr_CUA) and E. coli tyrosyl-tRNA (Ec.TyrRS) were introduced into A. nidulans, they successfully synthesized the target protein via amber suppression and were shown to be orthogonal to the fungal translation system. By replacing the wild-type Ec.TyrRS with a mutant with a higher affinity for the UAA O-methyl-L-tyrosine, the fungal system was able to initiate the synthesis of the UAA-labeled protein (UAA-protein). We further increased the expression level of the UAA-protein through several rational modifications. The successful development of a genetic code expansion technique for A. nidulans has introduced a potentially valuable approach to the study of fungal protein structure and function.

Keywords: Amber suppression; Aspergillus; Filamentous fungus; Genetic codon expansion; Unnatural amino acid.