Division of Chemistry and Chemical Engineering, Mail Code 210-41, California Institute of Technology, 1200 East California Boulevard, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
Directed evolution is a common technique to engineer enzymes for a diverse set of applications. Structural information and an understanding of how proteins respond to mutation and recombination are being used to develop improved directed evolution strategies by increasing the probability that mutant sequences have the desired properties. Strategies that target mutagenesis to particular regions of a protein or use recombination to introduce large sequence changes can complement full-gene random mutagenesis and pave the way to achieving ever more ambitious enzyme engineering goals.