Professor Eric Anslyn

Professor Eric Anslyn
Department of Chemistry
University of Texas at Austin

Synthesis and Sequencing of Sequenced-Defined Biotic and Abiotic Polymers

There is little argument that many of the grand achievements of biotechnology, biochemistry, and chemical biology stem from advances in synthetic organic chemistry embodied in the development of solid-phase synthetic approaches for proteins and nucleic acids. Of equal importance to the synthesis of the biopolymers, however, are methods for their sequencing. Revolutions in nucleic acid sequencing have led to single molecule and Next-Gen parallel methods. Similar advances in protein sequencing have lagged behind. In collaboration with the Marcotte group at UT Austin, we have created a single-molecule peptide sequencing routine referred to as fluorosequencing. Therein, peptides are N-terminal captured, the amino acids selectively labelled with fluorophores, C-terminal differentiated, and then placed on TIRF microscope for rounds of Edman degradation. The development and implementation of the organic chemistry necessary in the method will be discussed. On another topic, the sequencing of sequence-defined polymers, other than nucleic acids and proteins, shows promise as a new paradigm for data storage. We have devised the first use of oligourethanes for storing and reading encoded information. As a proof of principle, an approach will be described using a text passage from Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park. It was encoded in oligourethanes and reconstructed via chain-end degradation sequencing. We developed Mol.E-coder, a software tool that utilizes a Huffman encoding scheme to convert the character table to hexadecimal. The passage was capable of being reproduced wholly intact by a third-party, without any purifications or the use of MS/MS, despite multiple rounds of compression, encoding, and synthesis. Further, we have used mass-tags on the oligourethanes to sort mixtures and keep track of simultaneous sequencing, and we have generated electrochemical methods for sequencing. Overall, this presentation will highlight the interplay and utility of synthesis and sequencing in sequence-defined polymers.

Eric Anslyn

Professor Eric V. Anslyn received his BS in chemistry from the California State University Northridge in 1982. He did his doctoral work under the direction of Robert Grubbs at the Caltech, receiving a PhD in 1987. Afterwards, he was an NSF post-doctoral fellow at Columbia University, working with Ronald Breslow. From there he started as an assistant professor of chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin in 1989. At UT Austin he rose through the ranks to currently hold the Welch Regents Chair of Chemistry, and is a University Distinguished Teaching Professor, as well as an HHMI Professor. He is a Cope Scholar, and he has won the James, Flack, Norris Award from the ACS for advancements in physical organic chemistry, the Izatt- Christianson Award for Supramolecular Chemistry, and the Czarnik award for molecular sensors. Dr. Anslyn was recently inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Science. His research is in the areas of physical organic and supramolecular chemistry, focused on deciphering reaction mechanisms, novel methods for chemosensing, materials chemistry, and information encoding.

Host: Elizabeth Rogan

This seminar is generously sponsored by the Paul Gassman fund.