Designer membraneless organelles enable codon reassignment of selected mRNAs in eukaryotes

Abstract

How to make an organelle in eukaryotes A key step in the evolution of complex organisms like eukaryotes was the organization of specific tasks into organelles. Reinkemeier et al. designed an artificial, membraneless organelle into mammalian cells to perform orthogonal translation. In response to a specific codon in a selected messenger RNA, ribosomes confined to this organelle were able to introduce chemical functionalities site-specifically, expanding the canonical set of amino acids. This approach opens possibilities in synthetic cell engineering and biomedical research. Science , this issue p. eaaw2644