Novel facilitation of peptide synthesis

Article abstract of DOI:10.1038/217247b0

THE solid phase method of synthesizing peptides1, in which the carbon-terminal residue is first esterified to a hydroxymethylpolystyrene resin, has been used successfully for the rapid synthesis in high yield of peptides which can be purified after removal from the resin2. If such a procedure, which omits the purification of intermediates, is to yield a homogeneous product without further purification, every stage must proceed to completion. For example, if 0.5 per cent of the amino-groups remain unacylated after each coupling, then after one hundred stages the product will contain only 61 per cent of the required peptide, the remainder being peptides with closely similar but defective sequences. It is a serious disadvantage of the solid phase method that one of the reactants is polymeric, making it difficult to force reactions to completion.

Full text of DOI:10.1038/217247b0

©
1968 Nature Publishing Group

©
1968 Nature Publishing Group