C-GEM researchers developed a novel method called 3-Prime Adenosine-Retaining Aminoacyl–tRNA Isolation (PARTI), which determines precisely how much of a cellular tRNA is acylated, what it is acylated with, and whether it has been acylated once or twice. PARTI is an essential verification tool for optimizing the incorporation of non-canonical and expanded/alternative backbone monomers into proteins using genetic code expansion (GCE) in cells.
This work was led by Meghan Pressimone (graduate student) in collaboration with Dr. Carly Schissel (Miller Postdoctoral Fellow), Isabella Goss (SURP scholar, 2023), Dr. Cameron Swenson (UC Berkeley PhD, 2024), and Prof. Alanna Schepartz (director).