Introduction and Preparation of Peptide

Peptides are short chains of amino acid monomers linked with peptide bonds. The covalent chemical bond is formed when carboxyl group of one amino acid reacts with amino group of other. This is the chemical formation of synthetic peptides which is presently used for biological and therapeutic solutions. Peptides play a crucial role in both biological mechanism and therapeutic solutions for future research in finding cures to numerous diseases.

Peptides are central to many researches and therefore a number of pharmaceutical companies are showing renewed interest for therapeutic nature of peptides. A recent study showed that nearly 140 peptides are presently evaluated in clinical trials and more than 500 are in pre-clinical development. A lot of progress is made in the recent times in administration modes to enhance and improve their bioavailability and stability. This progress empowers the potential therapeutic peptides which suggest an increase in production of peptides in the near future.

A number of synthetic peptides are significantly available for in commercial and pharmaceutical purposes, ranging from dipeptide sugar substitute aspartame to clinically used hormones like oxytocin, adrenocorticotropic hormone and calcitonin.

Peptide synthesis is now a more practical part of current scientific research following the advent of solid-phase technique. The concept of solid-phase peptide synthesis (SPPS) is to retain chemistry that has proven in solution but to add a covalent attachment step that links nascent peptide chain in insoluble polymeric support (resin). It is the essence of the solid phase approach that reactions are made to complete by using excess soluble reagents, which can be removed by simple filtration and washing. Once the reaction is complete, the crude peptide is released from the support.

In an ideal world most peptide synthesis services purify products using reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC), though sometimes alternative methods are adopted such as ion exchange or gel filtration chromatography for purification. Custom peptides that are unusual or difficult to produce may require special services. However, nearly all the peptide synthesis service ships its products with HPLC and mass spectrometry (MS) results to verify purity level and identity of the peptide.