Solid-phase peptide synthesis using nanoparticulate amino acids in water

• Published in: Journal of peptide science Vol. 13; no. 7; pp. 493 - 497
• Main Authors: Hojo, Keiko, Ichikawa, Hideki, Maeda, Mitsuko, Kida, Shinya, Fukumori, Yoshinobu, Kawasaki, Koichi
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01.07.2007
• Subjects: Amides - chemical synthesis; Amides - chemistry; Amino Acids - chemistry; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; Enkephalin, Leucine - chemical synthesis; Enkephalin, Leucine - chemistry; Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; nanoparticles; Nanoparticles - chemistry; Nanoparticles - ultrastructure; peptide synthesis in water; Peptides - chemical synthesis; Peptides - chemistry; solid-phase synthesis; suspension; Water - chemistry
• ISSN: 1075-2617; 1099-1387
• DOI: 10.1002/psc.874

Solid‐phase peptide synthesis has many advantages compared with solution peptide synthesis. However, this procedure requires a large amount of organic solvents. Since safe organic solvent waste disposal is an important environmental problem, a technology based on coupling reaction of suspended nanoparticle reactants in water was studied. Fmoc‐amino acids are used widely, but most of them show low solubility in water. We prepared well‐dispersible Fmoc‐amino acid nanoparticles in water by pulverization using a planetary ball mill in the presence of poly(ethylene glycol). Leu‐enkephalin amide was prepared successfully using the nanoparticulate Fmoc‐amino acid on a poly(ethylene glycol)‐grafted Rink amide resin in water. Copyright © 2007 European Peptide Society and John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.