Inteins: nature's gift to protein chemists

摘要: Inteins are auto-processing domains found in organisms from all of life. These proteins carry out a process known as protein splicing, which is multi-step biochemical reaction comprised both the cleavage and formation peptide bonds. While endogenous substrates splicing specific essential intein-containing host organisms, inteins also functional exogenous contexts can be used to chemically manipulate virtually any polypeptide backbone. Given this, chemists have exploited various facets intein reactivity modify myriad ways for basic biological research well potential therapeutic applications. Here, we review field, first focusing on context phylogenetic diversity inteins, followed by description structure function. Finally, discuss prevalent intein-based technologies, their applications chemical biology, persistent caveats chemistry approaches alleviate these shortcomings. The findings summarized herein describe two half decades research, leading curiosity development powerful engineering tools.