Native Chemical Ligation and Extended Methods: Mechanisms, Catalysis, Scope, and Limitations.

The native chemical ligation reaction (NCL) involves reacting a C-terminal peptide thioester with an N-terminal cysteinyl peptide to produce a native peptide bond between the two fragments. This reaction has considerably extended the size of polypeptides and proteins that can be produced by total synthesis and has also numerous applications in bioconjugation, polymer synthesis, material science, and micro- and nanotechnology research. The aim of the present review is to provide a thorough mechanistic overview of NCL and extended methods. The most relevant properties of peptide thioesters, Cys peptides, and common solvents, reagents, additives, and catalysts used for these ligations are presented. Mechanisms, selectivity and reactivity are, whenever possible, discussed through the insights of computational and physical chemistry studies. The inherent limitations of NCL are discussed with insights from the mechanistic standpoint. This review also presents a palette of O, S-, N, S-, or N, Se-acyl shift systems as thioester or selenoester surrogates and discusses the special molecular features that govern reactivity in each case. Finally, the various thiol-based auxiliaries and thiol or selenol amino acid surrogates that have been developed so far are discussed with a special focus on the mechanism of long-range N, S-acyl migrations and selective dechalcogenation reactions.

Catalysis of Thiol-Thioester Exchange by Water-Soluble Alkyldiselenols Applied to the Synthesis of Peptide Thioesters and SEA-Mediated Ligation.

N-Alkyl bis(2-selanylethyl)amines catalyze the synthesis of peptide thioesters or peptide ligation from bis(2-sulfanylethyl)amido (SEA) peptides. These catalysts are generated in situ by reduction of the corresponding cyclic diselenides by tris(2-carboxyethyl)phosphine. They are particularly efficient at pH 4.0 by accelerating the thiol-thioester exchange processes, which are otherwise rate-limiting at this pH. By promoting SEA-mediated reactions at mildly acidic pH, they facilitate the synthesis of complex peptides such as cyclic O-acyl isopeptides that are otherwise hardly accessible.

A statistical view of protein chemical synthesis using NCL and extended methodologies.

Native chemical ligation and extended methodologies are the most popular chemoselective reactions for protein chemical synthesis. Their combination with desulfurization techniques can give access to small or challenging proteins that are exploited in a large variety of research areas. In this report, we have conducted a statistical review of their use for protein chemical synthesis in order to provide a flavor of the recent trends and identify the most popular chemical tools used by protein chemists. To this end, a protein chemical synthesis (PCS) database (http://pcs-db.fr) was created by collecting a set of relevant data from more than 450 publications covering the period 1994-2017. A preliminary account of what this database tells us is presented in this report.

Accelerating chemoselective peptide bond formation using bis(2-selenylethyl)amido peptide selenoester surrogates.

Given the potential of peptide selenoesters for protein total synthesis and the paucity of methods for the synthesis of these sensitive peptide derivatives, we sought to explore the usefulness of the bis(2-selenylethyl)amido (SeEA) group, i.e. the selenium analog of the bis(2-sulfanylethyl)amido (SEA) group, for accelerating peptide bond formation. A chemoselective exchange process operating in water was devised for converting SEA peptides into the SeEA ones. Kinetic studies show that SeEA ligation, which relies on an initial N,Se-acyl shift process, proceeds significantly faster than SEA ligation. This property enabled the design of a kinetically controlled three peptide segment assembly process based on the sequential use of SeEA and SEA ligation reactions. The method was validated by the total synthesis of hepatocyte growth factor K1 (85 AA) and biotinylated NK1 (180 AA) domains.