A practical synthesis of the ¹³C/¹⁵N- labelled tripeptide N-formyl- Met-Leu-Phe, useful as a reference in solid- state NMR spectroscopy

• Sven T. Breitung,
• Jakob J. Lopez,
• Gerd Dürner,
• Clemens Glaubitz,
• Michael W. Göbel and
• Marcel Suhartono

Beilstein J. Org. Chem. 2008, 4, No. 35, doi:10.3762/bjoc.4.35

• Wolfgang Goethe University Frankfurt, Max-von-Laue-Str. 9, D-60438 Frankfurt am Main, Germany 10.3762/bjoc.4.35 Abstract A mild synthetic method for N-formyl-Met-Leu-Phe-OH (1) is described. After Fmoc solid phase peptide synthesis, on-bead formylation and HPLC purification, more than 30 mg of the fully

• 13C/15N-labelled tripeptide 1 could be isolated in a typical batch. This peptide can be easily crystallised and is therefore well suited as a standard sample for setting up solid-state NMR experiments. Keywords: Fmoc solid phase peptide synthesis; formylation; f-MLF; magic-angle spinning; Wang resin

• . Results and Discussion Peptide Synthesis The synthesis of the MLF tripeptide started with the immobilisation of 13C/15N-labelled Fmoc-Phe-OH to the solid support (Wang resin 2). This esterification step, leading to 3 quantitatively, was performed by activating the COOH group with MSNT under mild reaction