In-situ Solvent Recycling Process for Solid Phase Peptide Synthesis at Elevated Temperatures

This application is a continuation in part of Ser. No. 1,5299,931, filed Oct. 21, 2016, for “Improvements in Solid Phase Peptide Synthesis.”

Bruce Merrifield's pioneering development of solid phase peptide synthesis created a useful process for synthesis peptide chains through its use of filtration to remove reagents between steps. The process has involved repetitive cycles which include coupling and deprotection with washing and filtration in-between each step (FIG. 1). It has commonly been assumed that washing is required between each step to completely remove the reagents previously used so that they don't undesirably participate in the next step. This typically involves “insertions” which refer to the incorporation of an extra amino acid. This is thought to occur through either residual base removing the protecting group (Fmoc) on an amino acid recently coupled thereby allowing a second amino acid to “insert”; or through residual activated amino acid left behind during the subsequent deprotection step which could couple to deblocked sites thereby “inserting” an extra amino acid from the previous step. It was recently shown, however, that washing after the coupling step was not required for the successful synthesis of peptides. In this work the coupling step was drained and the deprotection solution was subsequently added to the vessel (J. Collins, K. Porter, S. Singh and G. Vanier, “High-Efficiency Solid Phase Peptide Synthesis (HE-SPPS),” Org. Lett., vol. 16, pp. 940-943, 2014) (FIG. 2).

The invention is a method of deprotection in solid phase peptide synthesis in which the improvement comprises adding the deprotection composition in high concentration and small volume to the mixture of the coupling solution, the growing peptide chain, and any excess activated amino acid from the preceding coupling cycle; and without any draining step between the coupling step of the previous cycle and the addition of the deprotection composition for the successive cycle; and with the coupling solution at least 30° C.

In another aspect the invention is a method of deprotection in solid phase peptide synthesis in which the improvement comprises adding the deprotection composition in high concentration and small volume to the mixture of the coupling solution, the growing peptide chain, and any excess activated amino acid from the preceding coupling cycle; and without any draining step between the coupling step of the previous cycle and the addition of the deprotection composition for the successive cycle which removes at least 50% of the volume of the previous cycle coupling solution; and with the coupling solution at a temperature of at least 30° C.

The foregoing and other objects and advantages of the invention and the manner in which the same are accomplished will become clearer based on the followed detailed description taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings.

This invention presents a novel process whereby the coupling and deprotection steps occur within the same solvent. In this process concentrated base is added directly to the resin coupling solution after a desired period of time for the coupling to occur. The deprotection step is then immediately started when the base is added. Therefore, the onset of the deprotection step is immediately after the coupling step without any time delay.

Additionally, only a small volume of base is required since it can use the solvent present from the coupling reaction. This requires a sophisticated reagent delivery system for the base that is accurate at very small volumes (0.5 mL) with rapid delivery. Typically, a 20% solution of base (piperidine) in solvent is used for the deprotection step. Excess base concentration can increase base-catalyzed side reactions and therefore significant solvent is required. This means that significant solvent can be saved from this process by adding concentrated base to the coupling solvent.

To demonstrate the effectiveness of this new process a batch of 24 peptides were assembled using an automated peptide synthesizer modified to perform the in-situ solvent recycling step during each cycle.

Materials and methods:

All peptides were synthesized using a LIBERTY BLUE™ PRIME™ system (CEM Corp., Matthews, N.C., USA) allowing for automated in-situ solvent recycling and evaporation based washing. The peptides were synthesized at 0.05 mmol scale with 10 equivalents of amino acid using CarboMAX™ coupling with amino acid/carbodiimide/ethyl 2-cyano-2-(hydroxyimino)acetate (AA/DIC/Oxyma) (1:2:1) based activation for 100 sec at 90° C. (E. Atherton, N. L. Benoiton, E. Brown, R. Sheppard and B. J. Williams, “Racemization of Activated, Urethane-protected Amino-acids by p-Dimethylaminopyridine. Significance in Solid Phase Peptide Synthesis,” J.C.S. Chem. Comm., pp. 336-337, 1981). ProTide resins (CEM Corp.) based on TentaGel® technology were used for synthesis with either a Rink Amide linker or a Cl-TCP(Cl) linker with unactivated loading of the first amino acid with DIEA at 90° C. for 5 min. The deprotection step was performed for 50 sec at 95° C. and initiated by adding 0.5mL of 50% pyrrolidine directly to the coupling solution. A single 1×4 mL wash was used in between the deprotection and coupling steps. Peptides were cleaved with Trifluoroacetic acid (TFA)/triisopropylsilane/water/2,2′-(ethylenedioxy)diethanethiol (TFA/TIS/H₂O/DODt) (92.5:2.5:2.5:2.5) for 30 min at 38° C. using a RAZOR™ cleavage system (CEM Corp.).

Results and discussion:

All peptides synthesized in Table 1 gave the desired target as the major peak with a standard cycle time of 2 minutes and 58 seconds. The in-situ solvent recycling process allowed for 0.5mL of a concentrated pyrrolidine (BP 87° C.) solution to be added to the end of the coupling step (without draining). An advantage of this setup was that the deprotection immediately proceeded very close to the desired temperature (95° C.) because the coupling solution was already at 90° C. During the deprotection process a vacuum was applied and the pyrrolidine was evaporated and subsequently condensed in the waste container. This allowed only a single wash step (1×4 mL) to be required at the end of the deprotection step.

Total synthesis time for entire batch: 32.6 hours

This new process provided a significant reduction in standard cycle time (2 minutes 57 seconds) from (a)—elimination of the coupling drain time, (b)—elimination of the deprotection delivery time between steps, and (c)—elimination of the temperature ramp time for the deprotection step thereby allowing a shorter deprotection time to be used. Additionally, significant solvent savings were possible with the complete elimination of the deprotection solvent during each cycle.

In the drawings and specification there has been set forth a preferred embodiment of the invention, and although specific terms have been employed, they are used in a generic and descriptive sense only and not for purposes of limitation, the scope of the invention being defined in the claims.