Recent Advances in the Synthesis of Peptides and Proteins

The present chapter deals with the recent developments in synthetic methodology, process development, and techniques modifications employed in peptides, and proteins synthesis as well as semi-synthesis through solution phase synthesis (SPS), and primarily in the solid phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) method in a variety of sequential, divergent, convergent, and ligation-based strategies. It also dwells upon the physicochemical, stereo-electronic, structural/chemical, and reaction medium's related factors affecting the synthesis, geometric outcomes, purification, and yields of the intended product. The chapter provides recent insights into coupling reagents, linker’s role, and associated feasibilities in handling, solubility issues, and inprocess product’s aggregation during synthesis, purification as well as discusses techniques to resolve these issues with pertinent examples on different sets of ‘difficult’ and long-chain peptides and on diversely-sourced proteins’ syntheses employing various approaches of different kinds for prototypical developments in the field of protein and peptide chemical synthesis.

Keywords: Chemical ligation, Chemical synthesis, Convergent and divergent peptide synthesis, Coupling medium, Coupling reagents, Cysteine knot synthesis, Epimerization, Fragment condensation, Functional protein bioconjugate, Inverse synthesis, Linear and Cyclic peptides, Native chemical ligation, Peptide and protein-based drugs, Polymer-assisted synthesis, Polypeptide, Protein conjugation, Protein structural modifications, Racemization, Selenoproteins, Semi-synthesis, Solid support, Solution and solid phase peptide synthesis (SPS & SPPS), Staudinger ligation, Thiol capture, Thiol peptides, Trans-membrane proteins.