Insights into the Mechanism and Catalysis of Peptide Thioester Synthesis by Alkylselenols Provide a New Tool for Chemical Protein Synthesis

While thiol-based catalysts are widely employed for chemical protein synthesis relying on peptide thioester chemistry, this is less true selenol-based whose development in its infancy. In study, we compared different selenols derived from the selenocysteamine scaffold their capacity to promote thiol–thioester exchanges water at mildly acidic pH and production of thioesters bis(2-sulfanylethyl)amido (SEA) peptides. The usefulness a selected selenol compound illustrated by total biologically active human chemotactic protein, which plays an important role innate adaptive immunity.