Chemical Synthesis of Proteins Using Chemoselective Ligation

Abstract

Chemoselective ligations of non-protected peptide fragments have paved the way for chemical access to proteins, including native chemical ligation (NCL) which features the reaction of peptide thioesters with N-terminal cysteine peptides. Recently NCL allows for chemical synthesis of a wide variety of proteins over 150-residue with technical improvements relevant to the NCL being developed. Additionally, ligation protocols alternate to the NCL including Ser/Thr and KAHA ligations have also enjoyed success in protein chemical synthesis. Consequently, the chemical access to proteins has become within reach of researchers including organic and medicinal chemists. Herein, we briefly summarized the recent progress of chemoselective ligations for protein chemical synthesis.