Peptides have a variety of roles in cancer research, being potential cancer therapeutics, vaccines, antigens for antibody generation, standards for various applications, and key analytes in emerging clinical diagnostic assays.
Here we describe the synthetic processes employed at Children’s Medical Research Institute in the NSW Cancer Research Peptide Synthesis Facility. We demonstrate how high-throughput peptide synthesis is enabling a major cancer research program, ProCan, which is surveying the proteomes of large numbers of cancer samples of all types, paediatric and adult, primarily to increase the accuracy of treatment decisions.
Large batches of peptides have been prepared on automated parallel peptide synthesizers via solid phase peptide synthesis, using HBTU/HOBt and DIC/Oxyma coupling chemistry. A series of batches of 48 peptides have been prepared via syringe synthesis for use as mass spectrometry standards. A further series of 572 peptides has been prepared by tip synthesis to be employed developing clinical diagnostic SRM assays for breast cancer. Other sets of between 1000 and 8000 peptides are being synthesised for use in expanding proteomic search spaces and spectral reference libraries to ensure that biomarkers already known to be relevant are identified in proteomic studies.
We will describe some of the ways that a high-throughput peptide synthesis workflow can benefit cancer research projects and some of the research approaches that can be facilitated by the availability of synthetic peptides.