Fluorescently labelled amino acids and peptides for efficient screening in situ and in vivo Check Access

A variety of amino acids with fluorescent side groups (Faa's) are now commercially available and can be inserted into peptides through solid-phase synthesis. Concentration of single Faa can be quantified in a mixture of multiple Faa's without isolation, by using 2-dimensional fluorescence spectroscopy combined with the least-squares analysis. Peptide libraries that consist of 8 sub-libraries, each being labelled with different Faa were synthesized. The multiply labelled library was employed to find cancer-cell binding peptides, by quantifying sub-libraries that were most abundantly found in targeting cells. The technique is applicable for efficient screening of peptides both in situ and in vivo.