Peptide synthesis
From DrugPedia: A Wikipedia for Drug discovery
Peptide Synthesis is the synthesis of peptide by chemical methods in which amino acids linked by peptide bonds which is known as amide bond.
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Chemistry
In the simple terms, peptides can be synthesized by the nucleophillic attack of amino group of incoming peptide to the carboxyl group of first peptide. But it is not as simple as that because the chances of unintended reactions are very high. So, generally protecting groups are used to prevent all these unintended reactions.
Types of peptide synthesis
Peptide synthesis process can be classified on the basis of used techniques and type of the final product.
Liquid-phase peptide synthesis
Liquid-phase, or classical peptide synthesis can be devided into two classes - step-by-step peptide synthesis with subsequent adding of one amino acid at ones from C-terminal to N-terminal and block-synthesis with coupling of polypeptide fragments. Liquid-phase peptide synthesis is used in large-scale peptide production for industry.
Solid-phase peptide synthesis
Solid phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) has been the most efficient method for the preparation of peptides since its introduction in 1963 by Bruce Merrifield. The t-Boc amino acid derivatives had been used dominantly for the SPPS until the Fmoc chemistry was introduced to overcome the t-Boc chemistry problems, repetitive TFA treatment which might catalyze the side reactions and cleave the peptide chain prematurely. In Fmoc synthesis, the growing peptide is subjected to mild base treatment using piperidine to remove the Fmoc group, and TFA is required only for the final deprotection and cleavage from the resin. The comparison experiments [1] between Fmoc and t-Boc approache indicate that Fmoc chemistry is more reliable and tends to give the desired peptides in better purities.
Homo-polymerisation
Homo-polymerisation is used to synthesize homo-polymeric chains of amino acids.
Enzymatic peptide synthesis
Enzymatic peptide synthesis is based on enzymes which are able to formate peptide bond. Unfortunately this technique is very complicated and there is no remarkable results was achieved yet.
Partial peptide synthesis
In partial peptide synthesis technique the natural peptides and proteins are used as a source of peptide fragments.
Cyclopeptide synthesis
Cyclopeptide synthesis is the cyclization of linear peptides.
Non-standard peptide synthesis
Non-standard peptide synthesis is used to produce peptides with non-standard peptide bonds, for example ester-bonds etc.
