氨酰-tRNA合成酶的研究进展

氨酰-tRNA合成酶催化特异的氨基酸与同源tRNA氨酰化，从而保证了遗传密码翻译的忠实性。这些古老而保守的蛋白质分子除了具有酶的功能外，在哺乳动物细胞中还发现了多种其他功能，具有重要的应用价值。在寻找具有全新作用机制的新抗生素以应对日益严重的抗生素耐药现象过程中，氨酰-tRNA合成酶是细菌蛋白质合成过程中重要的、新颖的靶标，成为关注的重点。定向突变的氨酰-tRNA合成酶可以用来定点掺入非天然氨基酸，扩展蛋白质工程。今后，随着人们对氨酰-tRNA合成酶研究的不断深入，它们还可能用来治疗肿瘤等多种疾病。

Research Progress on Aminoacyl-tRNA Synthetases

Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases catalyze the attachment of specific amino acids to their cognate tRNAs, thereby ensuring the faithful translation of genetic code. In addition to their enzymatic function, these ancient and conserved enzymes have been discovered to have many additional functions in mammalian cells. As a result, several application aspects have been found. Aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases have attracted interest as essential and novel targets involved in bacterial protein synthesis, and they are now being pursued as targets for new antibiotic drugs. Engineered aminoacyl-tRNA synthetases are uesed for site-specifically incorporation of non-natural amino acids. The results with animals suggest that therapeutic applications for many human diseases such as tumor are possible with the cognate tRNA synthetases.