Modern extensions of native chemical ligation for chemical protein synthesis

Abstract

Over the past 20 years, native chemical ligation has facilitated the synthesis of numerous complex peptide and protein targets, with and without post-translational modifications, as well as the design and construction of a variety of engineered protein variants. This powerful methodology has also served as a platform for the development of related chemoselective ligation technologies which have greatly expanded the scope and flexibility of ligation chemistry. This chapter details a number of important extensions of the original native chemical ligation manifold, with particular focus on the application of new methods in the total chemical synthesis of proteins. Topics covered include the development of auxiliary-based ligation methods, the post-ligation manipulation of Cys residues, and the synthesis and utility of unnatural amino acid building blocks (bearing reactive thiol or selenol functionalities) in chemoselective ligation chemistry. Contemporary applications of these techniques to the total chemical synthesis of peptides and proteins are described.