The synthesis of disulfide-containing polypeptides represents a long-standing challenge in peptide chemistry, and broadly applicable methods for the construction of disulfides are in constant demand. Few strategies exist for on-resin formation of disulfides directly from their protected counterparts. We present herein a novel strategy for the on-resin construction of disulfides directly from Allocam-protected cysteines. Our palladium-mediated approach is mild and uses readily available reagents, requiring no special equipment. No reduced peptide intermediates or S-allylated products are observed, and no residual palladium can be detected in the final products. The utility of this method is demonstrated through the synthesis of the C-carboxy analog of oxytocin.

We present a convenient method for the diversification of peptides bearing cysteine at the C-terminus that proceeds to form a variety of carboxylic acid, carboxamide, 2° amide, and ester terminated peptides without any detectable epimerization of the α-stereocenter.

α4/7-Conotoxin LvIA is an isoform-selective inhibitor of the α3β2 nicotinic acetylcholine receptor. An efficient strategy for the synthesis of this toxin is critical to advancing its utility as a probe for receptor function and as a potential pharmaceutical lead target. On-resin methods for peptide synthesis offer potential synthetic advantages; however, strategies for on-resin formation of multiple disulfides have historically been low-yielding. Here, we harness the reactivity of the Allocam protecting group and employ 3-amino acid spacer strategy to synthesize α4/7-conotoxin LvIA via three different on-resin strategies, each of which results in an isolated yield higher than prior fully on-resin approaches.