Ilan Epstien

Arginine methylation is a structural modification to proteins involving the addition of methyl groups to an amino acid called arginine, resulting in one of three types of methylarginine. This structural modification is significant because its dysregulation can lead to the development of cancer, but how exactly it does so is not fully known. To understand how methylarginine affects cancer development, we need a reliable way to create methylated proteins within cells to experiment with. 

Therefore, I aimed to develop a novel method of producing proteins with this structural modification. My method will modify the protein synthesis process by utilizing a novel aminoacyl tRNA-synthetase (aaRS) I created based on computational predictions, which would allow the cell to add methylarginine into proteins when it normally would be unable to do so. 

To create designs for the novel protein, I used an AI-based protein prediction software developed by Google called AlphaFold. I based the structures of the engineered proteins on existing proteins that interact with methylarginine or structurally similar molecules. Using this software, I created two possible designs for a mutant aaRS. My work aims to help scientists develop cancer treatments and investigate arginine methylation by allowing them to acquire proteins for research more easily.