Patent ID: 7776535

Claim:
A method for making a fluorinated protein, comprising: (a) providing a nucleic acid, wherein the nucleic acid further includes a selector codon; and (b) providing a translation system, wherein the nucleic acid is translated by the translation system to encode a protein, and wherein the translation system further includes: (i) an orthogonal tRNA that recognizes the selector codon; (ii) a fluorinated aromatic amino acid comprising at least one fluorine atom and at least one lower alkyl group, wherein the at least one lower alkyl group is trifluoromethyl; and (iii) an orthogonal aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase that preferentially aminoacylates the orthogonal tRNA with the fluorinated amino acid to produce the fluorinated protein, wherein said orthogonal aminoacyl-tRNA synthetase is a polypeptide selected from the group consisting of polypeptides comprising the amino acid sequence as set forth in SEQ ID NO: 3 or SEQ ID NO: 8.