Directed evolution of artificial metalloenzyme – in vivo catalysis

There is a growing interest in implementing organometallic catalysis in the context of synthetic biology for sustainable production of chemicals. Some of the recent achievements in this field include development of bio-compatible cyclopropanation by Arnold and Balskus groups[1,2]. As a first step towards interfacing microbial metabolism we aim to utilize Artificial metalloenzymes (ArMs) to perform catalysis in the cell to augment cellular bio-synthesis. Integrating ArMs catalyzed reactions in cells also provides a springboard to apply Darwinian evolution to improve the performance of these primordial enzymes[3]. Please click Additional Files below to see the full abstract