Facile Assembly of Combinatorial Mutagenesis Libraries Using Nicking Mutagenesis.

Abstract

Combinatorial mutagenesis is a method where multiple user-defined mutations are encoded at defined positions in a sequence. Combinatorial mutagenic libraries can be used in a variety of applications including evaluating fundamental questions about molecular evolution, directed evolution workflows for enzyme engineering, and in better understanding of biological processes like antibody affinity maturation. Here, we show a method of combinatorial mutagenesis utilizing the template-based nicking mutagenesis with several modifications. We show an example for generating a combinatorial library with 14 mutated positions, a total of 16,384 library variants, and a protocol for the generation of large, user-defined combinatorial libraries. The reader can use this protocol to create such libraries in 2 days.