Peptide segment ligation strategy without use of protecting groups.

Abstract

We describe the concept and the verification of a chemical ligation approach to the synthesis of proteins using peptide se-ents with no protecting groups and no activation of the C-tenal a-carboxyl group. This approach of three steps: (i) aldehyde introduction, in which a masked glycolaldehyde ester Is linked to the carboxyl terminus of an unprotected peptide by reverse protedlysis; (ii) ring formation, in which the umaked aldehyde reacts with the N-teinal a-amino group of the second unprotected peptide containing either a cysteine or a threonine residue to form a t ne or olidine ring at an acidic pH; and (iii) rearrangement in which O-acyl ester linkage is transferred to N-acyl amide linkage to form a peptide bond with a pseudoproline stuture at higher pH. The (4), and the semi-synthesis of proteins consisting of components from synthetic peptides with unusual amino acids and proteins obtained through recombinant technology.The conventional segment-synthesis approaches (5) usually require a maximal protection strategy which has the limitations ofpoor solubility, low coupling efficiency, and the possible danger of racemization due to the overactivation of the carboxyl group. Considerable efforts have been made to overcome these limitations through the use of partial or minimal protecting-group strategies and improvements in the activation methods (6-11). However, these approaches do not overcome the problem of the poor coupling efficiency between large peptide segments, because of the intrinsic difficulty of obtaining effective molar concentrations for high molecular weight molecules. Alternative approaches to overcome the difficulty of forming amide bonds use hydrazone (12,13) or thioether and thioester (14) as surrogate bonds. The advantage of these peptide-bond replacement approaches resides in the high and specific reactivity between the two functional groups not found in amino acids to make the conjugation efficient. The disadvantage is that these linkages are substantially different from the peptide bond, which may lead to conformational distortion, and are usually not stable at either acidic (12) or basic (14) pH.We have now designed and developed a chemical ligation method by which two unprotected peptide segments can be ligated together through an amide bond. In our design, we make use of a highly regiospecific and efficient reaction to link covalently two unprotected peptides. The selectivity of this reaction would also obviate the need for any protecting groups. A peptide bond is then formed in a second step through an intramolecular rearrangement between the two closely neighboring carboxyl and amino groups. The efficiency of the first reaction would solve the slow kinetic problem for reactions between large molecules, and the second reaction, designed as a spontaneous process to form amide bonds without activating the carboxyl group, would overcome the racemization problem of the conventional segment condensation method. EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURESGeneral. 1H NMR spectra were obtained at 300 ...

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