Organic Chemistry Seminar

Friday, May 16th
Professor Ichiro Hirao
"Expansion of the Genetic Alphabet by Unnatural Base Pair Systems. "


4:15pm - 5:15pm
Braun Lecture Hall
S.G.Mudd Chemistry Building
Stanford University



This seminar is free and open to the public. All Stanford University Chemistry students are encouraged to attend this special event.

About the seminar:
The development of an unnatural, third base pair compatible with the natural A-T and G-C pairs could expand the genetic alphabet and code. This genetic expansion system would open the door to generate novel technology for enabling the site-specific incorporation of extra, functional components into nucleic acids and proteins. For this system, researchers have designed many unnatural base pairs on the basis of several concepts, and tested them in in vitro replication, transcription, and translation reactions.
In this talk, I will present our recent progress focused on the development of unnatural base pair systems. An unnatural base pair between a purine analog and a pyrimidine analog can function in transcription and translation, allowing for the site-specific incorporation of functional components into RNA molecules and proteins. Other hydrophobic base pairs faithfully function in replication and transcription, and DNA containing the third pairs can be amplified by PCR. I will describe the development of these unnatural base pairs and their application.
I. Hirao, et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 129, 15549-15555 (2007)
M. Kimoto, et al., Nucleic Acids Res., 35, 5360-5369 (2007)
I. Hirao, Curr. Opin. Chem. Biol., 10, 622-627 (2006)
I. Hirao, et al., Nature Methods, 3, 729-735 (2006)
R. Kawai, et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 127, 17286-17295 (2005)
K. Moriyama, et al., Nucleic Acids Res., 33, e129 (2005)
M. Kimoto, et al., Chem. & Biol., 11, 47-55 (2004)
I. Hirao, et al., J. Am. Chem. Soc., 126, 13298-13305 (2004)
I. Hirao, et al., Nature Biotechnology, 20, 177-182 (2002)
T. Ohtsuki, et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 98, 4922-4925 (2001)


About Hirao:
Dr. Hirao has been a team leader of Nucleic Acids Synthetic Biology Research Team in Systems and Structural Biology Center at RIKEN since 2001, and he founded TagCyx Biotechnologies in 2007. He is responsible for all of the fundamental research and applications relating to unnatural base pair systems in the company and the institute. Prior to founding the company, he had worked for The University of Tokyo, Indiana University, and Japan Science and Technology Agency. He received his PhD in chemistry from the Tokyo Institute of Technology in 1983.

Questions
Please contact Patricia Dwyer at 650-723-4770.