Enzyme-mediated oligonucleotide synthesis

67 views
Skip to first unread message

Bryan Bishop

unread,
Dec 25, 2014, 3:35:56 PM12/25/14
to enzymatic...@googlegroups.com, Bryan Bishop
Here's a method that uses terminal deoxynucleotidyl transferase (TdT) to replace some steps in phosphoramidite oligonucleotide synthesis:


"""
In the general scheme shown below in Figure 1, an incoming 3'-RPdNTP (reverse protective group dNTP) is added to a free 3'OH of a growing DNA chain by the enzyme TdT at 37° Celsius. This is followed by a wash step where unincorporated 3'RPdNTPs and PPi (pyrophosphate) are removed. For heat labile 3'-RPdNTP’s deprotection is achieved by raising the temperature to 95° Celsius, while photolabile 3'-RPdNTP’s are deprotected by pulses of ultra-violet light. This is followed by another wash step where the decoupled protective groups are removed, thereby resetting the system to begin another cycle of addition.

lesnik...@gmail.com

unread,
Mar 10, 2016, 8:38:17 AM3/10/16
to enzymaticsynthesis, kan...@gmail.com
This method really works or is it a theory? Is it possible to use it directly at the moment?

четверг, 25 декабря 2014 г., 23:35:56 UTC+3 пользователь Bryan Bishop написал:

Bryan Bishop

unread,
Mar 10, 2016, 8:44:02 AM3/10/16
to lesnik...@gmail.com, Oliver Medvedik, Bryan Bishop, enzymatic...@googlegroups.com
On Thu, Mar 10, 2016 at 2:31 AM, <lesnik...@gmail.com> wrote:
This method really works or is it a theory? Is it possible to use it directly at the moment?

They seemed to have tried it. I have CC'd Oliver Medvedik, who I think should have more information about the TdT-mediated oligonucleotide synthesis procedure. 

Oliver: For context, this was an email I received recently through the enzymaticsynthesis mailing list, https://groups.google.com/group/enzymaticsynthesis

oli...@genspace.org

unread,
Mar 12, 2016, 8:45:43 AM3/12/16
to enzymaticsynthesis
Yes. We are working on it. The next few months we'll be performing some critical experiments. It still needs work.

Oliver Medvedik

unread,
Mar 18, 2016, 4:01:17 PM3/18/16
to Алексей Киселёв, enzymaticsynthesis
Well it is still slow going, but I anticipate that keeping error rates down will be key, of course. Hopefully we can tackle that at many fronts. But first we have to establish the error rate which I thought we would have accomplished by now but haven't quite gotten there. We are shifting to UV labile protective group nucleotides, which have been very difficult/expensive to purchase until recently. We are hoping that the kinetics of decoupling will be much faster than the heat labile ones. 

On Fri, Mar 18, 2016 at 1:58 PM, Алексей Киселёв <lesnik...@gmail.com> wrote:
Bryan Bishop, thank you for help.

Oliver Medvedik, unfortunately, your labnotes ends in September 2014 (http://2014.igem.org/Team:Cooper_Union/Notebook/TdT_September) and I thought that the experiments have ended unsuccessfully. I am glad that it is not.
Can you tell us more about the problems that you have encountered? The theoretical model is understandable, but there are many pitfalls in practice. Can you tell us about this? What problems I met when I start experiments on TdT- oligonucleotide synthesis?

суббота, 12 марта 2016 г., 16:45:43 UTC+3 пользователь oli...@genspace.org написал:
Yes. We are working on it. The next few months we'll be performing some critical experiments. It still needs work.



--
Oliver Medvedik, Ph.D.
Director of Scientific Programs
Genspace NYC
33 Flatbush Ave.
Brooklyn, NY 11217

Алексей Киселёв

unread,
Mar 18, 2016, 5:30:08 PM3/18/16
to enzymaticsynthesis, oli...@genspace.org
Bryan Bishop, thank you for help.

Oliver Medvedik, unfortunately, your labnotes ends in September 2014 (http://2014.igem.org/Team:Cooper_Union/Notebook/TdT_September) and I thought that the experiments have ended unsuccessfully. I am glad that it is not.
Can you tell us more about the problems that you have encountered? The theoretical model is understandable, but there are many pitfalls in practice. Can you tell us about this? What problems I met when I start experiments on TdT- oligonucleotide synthesis?

суббота, 12 марта 2016 г., 16:45:43 UTC+3 пользователь oli...@genspace.org написал:
Yes. We are working on it. The next few months we'll be performing some critical experiments. It still needs work.

Алексей Киселёв

unread,
Mar 18, 2016, 5:30:19 PM3/18/16
to enzymaticsynthesis, oli...@genspace.org
Bryan Bishop, thank you for help.

Oliver Medvedik, unfortunately, your labnotes ends in September 2014 (http://2014.igem.org/Team:Cooper_Union/Notebook/TdT_September) and I thought that the experiments have ended unsuccessfully. I am glad that it is not.
Can you tell us more about the problems that you have encountered? The theoretical model is understandable, but there are many pitfalls in practice. Can you tell us about this? What problems I met when I start experiments on TdT- oligonucleotide synthesis?

суббота, 12 марта 2016 г., 16:45:43 UTC+3 пользователь oli...@genspace.org написал:
Yes. We are working on it. The next few months we'll be performing some critical experiments. It still needs work.

Nathan McCorkle

unread,
Mar 18, 2016, 5:35:37 PM3/18/16
to enzymaticsynthesis, lesnik...@gmail.com, oli...@genspace.org


On Friday, March 18, 2016 at 1:01:17 PM UTC-7, Oliver Medvedik wrote:
Well it is still slow going, but I anticipate that keeping error rates down will be key, of course. Hopefully we can tackle that at many fronts. But first we have to establish the error rate which I thought we would have accomplished by now but haven't quite gotten there. We are shifting to UV labile protective group nucleotides, which have been very difficult/expensive to purchase until recently. We are hoping that the kinetics of decoupling will be much faster than the heat labile ones. 


using photo-labile nucleotides seems counter-intuitive with a tDt based system... shouldn't the enzyme be doing all the work for you? I have been working on some nanofluidic ideas to allow addition of single nucleotides at a time, I wonder how different your teams implementation is from what I'm imagining.

Oliver

unread,
Mar 18, 2016, 8:06:21 PM3/18/16
to Nathan McCorkle, enzymaticsynthesis, lesnik...@gmail.com
Its to stop the reaction after one addition. 

Sent from my iPhone

Алексей Киселёв

unread,
Mar 19, 2016, 6:11:59 AM3/19/16
to enzymaticsynthesis, lesnik...@gmail.com, oli...@genspace.org
Oliver Medvedik, initially you would like to use heat-labile protecting group. I like this idea because there this option are now commercially available. It looks simple and affordable for ordinary biohacker. UV method is not yet available for all. Do you have any data on the effectiveness of heat-labile protecting group method? What is the error rate?

Oliver Medvedik

unread,
Mar 19, 2016, 3:38:53 PM3/19/16
to Алексей Киселёв, enzymaticsynthesis
The problem with the heat labile nucleotides that we had is that it takes way too long during each step. 

On Sat, Mar 19, 2016 at 6:11 AM, Алексей Киселёв <lesnik...@gmail.com> wrote:
Oliver Medvedik, initially you would like to use heat-labile protecting group. I like this idea because there this option are now commercially available. It looks simple and affordable for ordinary biohacker. UV method is not yet available for all. Do you have any data on the effectiveness of heat-labile protecting group method? What is the error rate?



Алексей Киселёв

unread,
Mar 20, 2016, 7:27:56 AM3/20/16
to enzymaticsynthesis, lesnik...@gmail.com, oli...@genspace.org
How much time was required? 10 minutes or an hour?
Why is this happening? PCR using the same 3'-protected nucleotides occurs rapidly. Perhaps the increase in concentration of TdT will make synthesis faster?

Your experiments are very important for DiyBio community. The need to order DNA synthesis in third-party labs - the bottleneck of biohacking. This is the same as if the programmer had each time to send the source code of the program to another company, wait a few days and pay money to compile the code. Absurd.
Reply all
Reply to author
Forward
0 new messages