Date: 31 March 2020 | Category: News
Vapourtec’s new Variable Bed Flow Reactor (VBFR) is at the core of success of the recent paper, “Real-Time Monitoring of Solid-Phase Peptide Synthesis Using a Variable Bed Flow Reactor” following collaboration with Prof. Dr. Peter Seeberger and members of his Group at Max Plank Institute of Colloids and Interfaces.
The VBFR is a new generation of packed bed reactor with an adjustable volume that can increase or decrease with addition or removal of mass to / from the packing media. When used in peptide synthesis, the reactor detects the packing density of the resin and changes its volume to maintain a consistent packing density. This allows for a more efficient synthesis of peptides under highly controlled conditions whilst providing valuable in-line data. UV detection and resin swelling can be easily used to evaluate the completion of the reaction and also detect aggregation events or all other modifications that result in volume changes.
Vapourtec’s Dr Manuel Nuno commented: “In this new publication, Peter Seeberger’s team used this breakthrough technology to synthesise different peptides, using Vapourtec’s new VBFR reactor.
“In the last decade a few research groups have successfully translated SPPS to continuous flow chemistry (CF-SPPS) however not all batch reactor limitations were resolved.
“Pharmaceutical companies have focused their attention in recent years on peptide therapeutics due to its benefits (high selectivity, few side-effects, less toxic degradation products, etc.) [2]. Since Bruce Merrifield published his first work in 1963 on solid supported peptide synthesis [3], the use of this technology has advanced the synthesis of peptides although some of the original challenges have yet to be addressed.
“Racemisation, side reaction and aggregation make some sequences difficult, it is often impossible to monitor and evaluate where these difficult syntheses have failed. This adds more time and resources in order to purify the desired peptide.
“This new publication once again demonstrates the versatility of Vapourtec’s R-Series system. By using a RS-400 system configured for SPPS together with the VBFR, several peptides have been synthesised with high pure crude yield[1],[4].
“JR-10 is known for being a challenging peptide to synthesise as it is known to aggregate. Thanks to the real-time, in-line data collected by FlowcommanderTM, the full synthesis of this peptide was rapidly optimised, the synthesis was completed in over two and a half hours with a high purity,” he added.
[1] E. T. Sletten, M. Nuño, D. Guthrie, and P. H. Seeberger, “Real-time monitoring of solid-phase peptide synthesis using a variable bed flow reactor,” Chem. Commun., 2019, doi: 10.1039/C9CC08421E.
[2] V. Mäde, S. Els-Heindl, and A. G. Beck-Sickinger, “Automated solid-phase peptide synthesis to obtain therapeutic peptides,” Beilstein J. Org. Chem., vol. 10, pp. 1197–1212, 2014.
[3] R. B. Merrifield, “Solid Phase Peptide Synthesis. I. The Synthesis of a Tetrapeptide,” J. Am. Chem. Soc., vol. 85, no. 14, pp. 2149–2154, Jul. 1963, doi: 10.1021/ja00897a025.
[4] V. Ltd, “Continuous Flow-based Solid-phase Peptide Synthesiser.”
To find out more about the RS-400 click here