Spot synthesis:: observations and optimizations

Positionally addressable syntheses of peptides on continuous cellulose membranes (spot synthesis) have often been reported in detail, but important questions dealing with synthesis quality, reproducibility and subsequent binding assays have largely been under-emphasized. In this report we have investigated some of these problems. The most important results were: (i) the signal intensity of ligate binding to cellulose-bound peptides and the affinity of the corresponding soluble peptides show good correlation, illustrated by three different ligate binding assays; (ii) reducing peptide density on the cellulose avoids the 'ring spot' effect, i.e. where less binding is observed in the spot-center compared to the rim. We recommend a peptide density of 10 nmol/cm(2) as a reasonable starting point for further optimization; (iii) statistical analysis of binding assay reproducibility with more than 15 000 peptides resulted in a mean standard signal deviation of 0.18; and (iv) optimization of side-chain deprotection revealed that a 30-min pretreatment of the cellulose with 90% trifluoroacetic acid followed by the standard deprotection protocol resulted in higher purity of the synthesized products.