Poly(ethylene glycol)-Containing Supports for Solid-Phase Synthesis of Peptides and Combinatorial Organic Libraries

The choice of a polymeric support is a key factor for the success of solid-phase methods for syntheses of organic compounds and biomolecules such as peptides and oligonucleotides. Classical Merrifield solid-phase peptide synthesis, performed on low cross-linked hydrophobic polystyrene (PS) beads, sometimes suffers from sequence-dependent coupling difficulties. The concept of incorporating PEG into supports for solid-phase synthesis represents a successful approach to alleviating such problems. This chapter reviews the preparation of families of poly(ethylene glycol)-polystyrene (PEG-PS) graft as well as (highly) Cross-Linked Ethoxylate Acrylate Resin (CLEAR) supports developed in our laboratories, and demonstrates their applications to the syntheses of a wide range of targets in connection with numerous research objectives.