Peptide chemistry (CSB)

The Chemistry Systems Biology (CSB) facility offers cutting edge expertise in two complementary areas.

The first expertise is in peptide and protein semi or total synthesis. The use of native peptide ligation chemistries such as the native chemical ligation or the bis(2-sulfanylethyl)amido (SEA) peptide ligation enables the access to complex peptide scaffolds (cyclic, branched, polycyclic…) or to proteins with an atom-by-atom control of their structure. The starting peptide segments are produced by conventional solid phase peptide synthesis or by recombinant methods and assembled in solution or on the solid phase depending of the final application.

Our expertise includes the folding of the synthesized proteins and the determination of disulfide bond patterns when present using proteomic tools (enzymatic digestion followed by mass spectrometry analysis). The secondary structure of the proteins can be studied using circular dichroism.

The second and complementary expertise is the biological study of peptide and proteins using an array of biochemical, biophysical, cellular and in vivo assays. Our expertise includes the development of custom assays for studying protein-protein and other biomolecular interactions using AlphaScreenÒ technology or for identifying protein binders from cell extracts. The production of biotinylated proteins by chemical synthesis is particularly relevant in this context and a strong asset. To give another example, we develop cellular phenotypic assays (cell scattering, cell morphogenesis…) for studying the activity of peptides, proteins or small compounds.