Combinatorial Libraries

YouTube playlist:
youtube.com/watch?v=8BDTS9NK7Zg&list=PL2aPXzks-TgNF957XOSBB3rPdFbtvsWYI

Directed Evolution

A fitness landscape drawn as a grey aerial view of hills, forests and rocky peaks. A single small flag with a green dot beside it stands part-way up one wooded slope, marking one starting sequence that is slowly climbing.

Combinatorial Libraries

The same grey fitness landscape, now with a regular grid of about seventy orange dots laid over one region of it, sampling that region evenly rather than climbing from one point. RFP GFP phoA

Engineering Methods

Combinatorial Libraries

  • Usually involves large libraries (>106) and selections
  • Used to find activities that do not pre-exist
  • Typically involves a single round of mutagenesis

Directed Evolution

  • Usually smaller libraries (<105) and screens
  • Used to improve or modify a nascent activity
  • Involves iterative rounds of mutagenesis