Novel Chemical Methods for Labeling Small Peptides

这个小企业创新研究I期项目旨在开发化学修饰小肽分子的方法，主要用于非放射性，快速，灵敏的荧光免疫测定。Assay Designs，Inc.他们希望用快速测定法取代冗长复杂的小肽放射性免疫测定法，将孵育时间从几天缩短到几小时。该研究项目将研究将荧光分子连接到小肽的N-末端氨基酸的可能性，并确定这种变化对免疫结合的影响。提出了几种方法来实现肽的这种衍生化。研究人员已经选择了神经活性肽，加压素作为合适的试验肽。目前的分析方法需要在需要几天才能完成的程序中使用放射性材料。第一阶段研究的目的是测试化学修饰后叶加压素的可行性，以附着荧光分子，从而实现快速灵敏的检测。所使用的方法将涉及将荧光吖啶酯和碱性磷酸酶系统连接到这些小肽上。研究人员还将研究肽序列的微小变化，以便更容易地引入这种荧光分子和标记。用于化学改变这些肽的方法应该适用于大量不同的小肽分子。

This Small Business Innovation Research Phase I project is designed to develop methods to chemically modify small peptide molecules for use primarily in non-radioactive, rapid, sensitive chemiluminescent immunoassays. Assay Designs, Inc. would like to replace the lengthy, complex radioactive immunoassays for small peptides with a rapid assay, reducing the incubation time from several days to a few hours. The research project will investigate the possibility of attaching chemiluminescent molecules to the N-terminal amino acid of a small peptide, and determining the effect of the change on the immunological binding. Several approaches are proposed to achieve this derivatization of the peptide. Researchers have chosen the neurologically active peptide, vasopressin as a suitable trial peptide. Current assay methods require the use of radioactive materials in procedures that take several days to complete. The purpose of this Phase I research is to test feasibility in chemically modifying vasopressin to attach chemiluminescent molecules that allow for rapid sensitive detection. The methods used will involve the attachment of chemiluminescent Acridinium esters and alkaline phosphatase systems to these small peptides. Researchers will also investigate small changes to the peptide sequence in order to allow easier introduction of such chemiluminescent molecules and labels. The methods used to chemically alter these peptides should be applicable to a large number of different small peptide molecules.