“…Briefly, the N -terminally acetylated tripeptide was synthesized on a Rink amide polystyrene (PS) resin, followed by removal of the allyl side-chain protecting group of Asp by treatment with Pd(PPh 3 ) 4 and phenylsilane (Scheme S1). Next, N -hydroxypthalimide (NHPI) was to be coupled to the free acid to obtain the RAE, but this was complicated by aspartimide formation. , Solid-phase activation of Asp and Glu side-chain carboxylic acids with NHPI has previously been performed using excesses of carbodiimide or hexafluorophosphate azabenzotriazole tetramethyl uronium (HATU) and various bases. , However, in these reports, proline was always used as the neighboring amino acid, eliminating the possibility for aspartimide formation but restricting the applicability to peptide sequences with an Asp-Pro pair. Instead, we looked for a general protocol that avoids this side reaction, irrespective of the nature of the next amino acid.…”