FWF - Peptide - Transition-metal catalyzed post-translational modification of peptides and proteins

The synthesis of labelled or post-translationally modified peptides and proteins represents an important challenge in Chemical Biology, which enables the characterization of these proteins with biophysical and cell-biological methods. While considerable progress in the development of biorthogonal ligation methods has been made over the last two decades, there is still a strong need for new methods that take advantage of natural amino acids to introduce natural and non-natural moieties as seen in posttranslational modifications. In this research project a Pd-catalyzed Tsuji-Trost-allylation will be developed for the prenylation of Cys-containing peptides and proteins, which allows the synthesis of prenylated peptides with high n/iso ratio and excellent chemoselectivity. It is planned to apply this method for the synthesis of farnesylated and geranylgeranylated proteins as well as for the introduction of linker groups that allow subsequent derivatization.