Liu Tao's team published an insulin-secreting cell therapy system regulated by unnatural amino acids in "Nature Chemical Biology"

2021 Nian 11 Yue 15 days, my room Tao researcher team in the field of chemical biology leading journals Nature Chemical Biology ( IF = 15.

In recent years, with the successful launch of CAR-T cells, cell therapy designed using synthetic biology has shown broad prospects for disease treatment

In response to this problem, Liu Tao's team has developed a non-natural amino acid-regulated insulin cell therapy system ( Noncanonical Amino acids (ncAAs)-triggered Therapeutic Switch, NATS ) using gene codon expansion technology , which bypasses transcriptional regulation and directly regulates proteins at the translational level.

The NAST system rapidly regulates protein expression at the translational level

Gene codon expansion technology uses aminoacyl- tRNA synthetase and tRNA molecule pair that can recognize ncAA , reads through the ectopic amber codon of mRNA , and inserts ncAA into protein.

To prove the long-term therapeutic effect of the NATS system, the researchers conducted a one-month drug efficacy and toxicity experiment

From left: Huang Yujia, researcher Liu Tao, Chen Chao, researcher Ye Haifeng

Chen Chao and Huang Yujia, Ph.

Paper link: https://  

【Introduction to Researcher Liu Tao】

Liu Tao is a researcher of the School of Pharmacy, Peking University, a doctoral supervisor, the director of the Department of Molecular and Cellular Pharmacology, the PI of the State Key Laboratory of Natural Medicines and Biomimetic Drugs, and the PI of the Interdisciplinary Center of Chemical Biology, Peking University .