(A) Nucleotide sequence of synthetic thisF gene. The protein comprises 253 amino acid residues, corresponding to 759 nucleotide of its structural gene. His6-tag was fused C-terminally to the coding sequence (depicted in blue together with stop codon). Red font indicates randomized positions. (B) Three dimensional location of randomized chain positions. The residues selected for randomization are presented as surfaces and colored according to their distance from the top (C-terminal ends of the β-strands). Blue: I52, A54, S55, S144, I173, D176, G177, K179; green: D11, L50, G80, H84, N103, T104, A105, D130, T171, S201, A204, A224, S225: orange: A8, S101, A128, L222, A223.