research-methods
Solid-Phase Peptide Synthesis (SPPS)
Definition
Solid-Phase Peptide Synthesis (SPPS) is the standard method for chemical synthesis of peptides, developed by Robert Bruce Merrifield in 1963 (Nobel Prize, 1984). In SPPS, the C-terminal amino acid is anchored to an insoluble polymer resin, and the peptide chain is assembled stepwise from C-terminus to N-terminus through repeated cycles of deprotection and amino acid coupling. The two main strategies are Boc (tert-butyloxycarbonyl) and Fmoc (fluorenylmethyloxycarbonyl) chemistry, with Fmoc-SPPS being predominant in modern peptide production due to milder cleavage conditions. SPPS enables the synthesis of research-grade peptides with precise sequence control.