Generation of Effective Libraries by Neutral Drift

Authors: Miriam Kaltenbach Nobuhiko Tokuriki

Publish Date: 2014

Volume: , Issue: , Pages: 69-81

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Abstract

Neutral drift is a recently developed experimental technique used to identify superior starting points for protein engineering Neutral drift explores accessible sequence space by repeated rounds of mutagenesis and selection to maintain wildtype function Mutations that are largely neutral for the native function accumulate and those that are highly detrimental are purged yielding a library of high diversity and quality This technique is useful in situations where laboratory evolution is at a dead end ie when the enzyme activity intended for evolution proves recalcitrant to improvements or is too low to be detected

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