Here we demonstrate the use of aqueous Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reactions to attach a variety of commercially available aryl boronic acids and synthesized peptides to the tyrosine residues in silk fibroin. Silk from <i>Bombyx mori</i> silkworms is a biodegradable, biocompatible and mechanically robust protein-based material that is of great interest for biomedical applications. Experiments presented here include the synthesis and characterization of boronic acid-labeled peptides, and the initial screening of Suzuki-Miyaura reaction conditions using model compounds. Optimized conditions were then used to covalently modify silk proteins and the silk derivatives were characterized using <sup>1</sup>H NMR, UV-Vis, ATR-FTIR, and conductometric titration.

Bioorthogonal Suzuki-Miyaura reactions on silk fibroin

ACS Spring Meeting 2021

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