Soft shell resins for solid-phase peptide synthesis

Controllable core-shell-type resin for solid-phase peptide synthesis

A simple, mild, and inexpensive biphasic functionalization approach is attempted for preparing an ideal core-shell-type resin. The core-shell-type architecture was constructed by coupling Fmoc-OSu to the amino groups on the shell layer of an aminomethyl polystyrene (AM PS) resin. The shell layer thickness of the resin could be easily controlled under mild conditions, which was characterized by confocal laser scanning microscopy (CLSM). The efficiency of core-shell-type resin for solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) was demonstrated by the synthesis of various peptides and compared with commercially available noncore-shell-type resins such as AM PS and poly(ethylene glycol)-based resins. The core-shell-type resin provided effective performance during the synthesis of hydrophobic peptide sequences, a disulfide-bridged cyclic peptide, and a difficult PNA sequence. Furthermore, a highly aggregative peptide fragment, MoPrP 105-125, was synthesized more efficiently on the core-shell-type resin under microwave conditions than AM PS and ChemMatrix resins.

Evaluation of COMU as a coupling reagent for in situ neutralization Boc solid phase peptide synthesis

Benzotriazole-based coupling reagents have dominated the last two decades of solid phase peptide synthesis. However, a growing interest in synthesizing complex peptides has stimulated the search for more efficient and low-cost coupling reagents, such as COMU which has been introduced as a nonexplosive alternative to the classic benzotriazole coupling reagents. Here, we present a comparative study of the coupling efficiency of COMU with the benzotriazole-based HBTU and HCTU for use in in situ neutralization Boc-SPPS. Difficult sequences, such as ACP(65-74), Jung-Redeman 10-mer, and HIV-1 PR(81-99), were used as model target peptides on polystyrene-based resins, as well as polyethylene glycol-based resins. Coupling yields obtained using fast in situ Boc-SPPS cycles were determined with the quantitative ninhydrin test as well as via LC-MS analysis of the crude cleavage products. Our results demonstrate that COMU coupling efficiency was less effective compared to HBTU and HCTU with HCTU ≥ HBTU > COMU, when polystyrene-based resins were employed. However, when the PEG resin was employed in combination with a safety catch amide (SCAL) linker, more comparable yields were observed for the three coupling reagents with the same ranking HCTU ≥ HBTU > COMU.