ABSTRACT
In its broadest sense, protein engineering is the process of creation of proteins with novel, valuable properties by the application of techniques from molecular biology, biochemistry, cell biology, and bioinformatics. Two main goals can be dened for protein engineering. The rst is the efcient understanding of biochemical mechanisms and their functioning, and the second the production of molecules with
16.1 Protein Engineering .................................................................................... 215 16.1.1 Site-Directed Mutagenesis: The Case of Fluorescent Proteins ...... 216 16.1.2 Protein Evolution ........................................................................... 218 16.1.3 Site-Specic Chemical Labeling of Proteins ................................. 218 16.1.4 Phage Display ................................................................................ 219
16.2 Gene Silencing ............................................................................................220 16.2.1 mRNA as Target ............................................................................. 221
Spiegelmers ...................................................................225 16.2.2 DNA as Target................................................................................225
16.3 Restoration of Gene Expression ..................................................................226 16.4 Delivery of Oligonucleotides ...................................................................... 227 Further Reading ..................................................................................................... 227
novel, designed, and improved properties and useful functions. Protein engineering was made possible by developments in recombinant DNA technologies and sitedirected mutagenesis (recognized in part by the Nobel Prize to M. Smith in 1993) in the 1970s and 1980s, enabling specically altered genetic information coding for a protein.
