Enabling routine fluorous capping in solid phase peptide synthesis

We describe here the use of polyfluorinated trivalent iodonium salts as efficient and robust capping reagents during solid phase peptide synthesis using either t-Boc or Fmoc chemistry. Standard protocols established for solid phase peptide synthesis can be utilized without any change in solvent or reagent conditions. The capping reaction was carried out at sites where amino acid coupling steps failed. At the termination of the synthesis, the crude peptide mixture obtained from release of materials from the resin, is either simply centrifuged in aqueous solution to yield pure peptide, or purified by passage through fluorous silica gel in solvents with high water content. We envision that the chemistry and reagents described here will find wide use in peptide and protein chemistry, and also in combinatorial library synthesis where terminal amines are coupled to reaction partners.

Peptides synthesized on the solid phase using the Fmoc protocol on commercial automated synthesizers or using manual synthesis were capped using fluorous trivalent iodonium salts at sites of incomplete couplings. Deletion products are removed by simple centrifugation of aqueous solutions. Figure optionsDownload as PowerPoint slide