High-Throughput Peptide Derivatization toward Supramolecular Diversification in Microtiter Plates

The evolution of life on earth eventually leads to the emergence of species with increased complexity and diversity. Similarly, evolutionary chemical space exploration in the laboratory is a key step to pursue the structural and functional diversity of supramolecular systems. Here, we present a powerful tool that enables rapid peptide diversification and employ it to expand the chemical space for supramolecular functions. Central to this strategy is the exploitation of palladium-catalyzed Suzuki-Miyaura cross-coupling reactions to direct combinatorial synthesis of peptide arrays in microtiter plates under an open atmosphere. Taking advantage of this in situ library design, our results unambiguously deliver a fertile platform for creating a set of intriguing peptide functions including green fluorescent protein-like peptide emitters with chemically encoded emission colors, hierarchical self-assembly into nano-objects, and macroscopic hydrogels. This work also offers opportunities for quickly surveying the diversified peptide arrays and thereby identifying the structural factors that modulate peptide properties.