The synthesis of proteins has been a challenge faced by scientists for over a century. Chemical synthesis of proteins offers attractive advantages over molecular biology and genetic engineering approaches – most importantly being the ability to produce a single, pure protein. The development of solid-phase peptide (protein) synthesis has seen little advancement since the first simple peptides were synthesized in the 1960s with the introduction of Merrifield peptide synthesis.<br/><br/>Traditional Merrifield (solid-phase) synthesis utilizes a resin bound N-terminus protected amino acid.  The N-terminus end of the resin-bound amino acid is deprotected and a C-terminus activated amino acid is added resulting in a dipeptide.  Unreacted resin bound amine is capped prior to the deprotection of the N-terminus end and the introduction of the next incoming C-terminus activated amino acid.  While this method has been the gold standard for years, problems still persist.  Long reaction times and incomplete reactivity plague the synthesis.  The synthesis of a tripeptide where each step affords a generous yield of 90% of the desired product results in an overall tripeptide yield of 53%. <br/><br/>The use of nano-reactors in the synthesis of peptides is the affords a new method that affords amino acid coupling at 100% yield in mere minutes.  The author will report on the development of a procedure for novel peptide synthesis.

Reinvention of peptide synthesis through utilization of nano-reactors

2019 Spring National Meeting

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