one of the greatest advances in solid phase peptide synthesis （SPPS） and proreomics over the past decade is the lise of microwave irradiation to overcome incomplete and slow reactions typical of conventional SPPS and prorcomic sample preparation.
Microwave energy has beell applied SlICcessfully in both manual and automated
approaches for enhancing the synthesis of pepridcs and peptidomimctics.
During the course of conventional pcptide synthesis, the growing peptide chain can form aggregates with itself or neighboring chains, leading to the production of low-quality pcptides. Due to its highly charged resonance structure, the peptide bond will readily absorb microwave energy, which induces molecular morion within the peptide. This random morion can overcome chain aggregation within the peptide, allowing for free access to the N-terminus of the growing peptide chain and resulting in a significant increase in peptide purity.
Microwave irradiation also call COllsiderably increase the speed at which peptides arc synrhesized. Traditionally, peptide coupling reactions require from 30 minutes up to two hours to reach completion. Microwave energy allows the amino acid coupling to be completed
in just five minutes.
The Fmoc deprotection reaction can be accelerated in the microwave to decrease
the reaction time from at least 15 minutes to only three minutes. We recendy demonstrated
U. Pept. Sci., 2007） that common side reactions such as racemization and aspartimide formation are easily controllable with optimized methods that can be applied routinely.
