Joseph A. Krzycki
- Department of Microbiology at The Ohio State University
- Professor, Departmental/Graduate Faculty
- Education
- B.S. University of Nebraska, Lincoln
- M.S. University of Wisconsin, Madison
- Ph.D. University of Wisconsin, Madison
- Expert in biochemistry and molecular biology of methanogenic archaea
Michael Chan
- Former Chemist and Biochemist at The Ohio State University
- Professor, Departmental/Graduate Faculty
- Education
- B.S., Chemistry, Harvey Mudd College
- Ph.D., Chemistry, University of California, Berkeley
- Expert in molecular biophysics
Joseph Krzycki and Michael Chan were the leaders and faculty who with their research team discovered the 22nd amino acid, L-pyrrolysine, in 2002. The 22nd is only found in organisms which use methylamines as energy sources (methanogenic archaea and bacterium).
Chan and Bing Hao, a graduate student, identified a unique coding region within the MtmB gene that codes for methanogenic methylamine methyltranferases. These structures also carry a residue which, upon closer examination, was determined to be L-pyrrolysine.
Kryzycki along with Carey M. James and Gayathri Srinivasan, two other graduate students, found two other genes next to the MtmB gene. One of the genes encodes a special tRNA, and the other loads tRNA with lysine. Research suggests that pyrrolysine is inserted into the MtmB gene during translation.