Dm. Evans et Lw. Herman, IDENTIFICATION OF PEPTIDE LIGANDS SPECIFIC FOR THE SUGAR-BINDING SITEOF CONCANAVALIN-A BY SCREENING A SYNTHETIC PEPTIDE COMBINATORIAL LIBRARY, Journal of biomolecular screening, 2(4), 1997, pp. 225-233
We describe a method, using an automated multiple-column chromatograph
ic approach, for identifying a ligand from a peptide library (containi
ng greater than 2.48 x 10(6) unique peptides) with specificity for the
sugar-binding site of the lectin Concanavalin A. The method used an i
mmobilized target to capture moieties from the library as the latter f
lowed through a chromatographic column. Due to the complexity of the i
nitial library, it was not possible to select for individual peptide s
equences with high affinity and specificity for the sugar binding site
. However, identification of peptides which specifically bound to the
target at this site was possible using subtractive pool sequencing of
affinity captured material. The latter technique involved sequencing t
he peptides retained (after washing the column for a fixed time) in th
e presence and absence of an excess of the known ligand for the target
, methyl alpha-D-mannopyranoside. Comparisons between the proportion o
f each amino acid at each sequencing cycle in the absence or presence
of an excess of sugar resulted in a peptide sequence of enriched amino
acids of the formula HxxSx (where x represents any one of the natural
amino acids except cysteine). This sublibrary (containing similar to
6859 individual peptides) was synthesized and rescreened. Two peptide
sequences (HHRSY and HVVSV) were identified with relatively high affin
ity for the sugar-binding site of Concanavalin A. The described techni
que of solution-phase subtractive pool sequencing (Patent pending) can
be employed for rapidly screening highly complex mixtures of peptides
and obtaining information about the amino acids within the sequences
that are essential for binding to a particular site on the target. Thi
s technique could also be applied to other combinatorial mixtures (e,g
., PNAs, nucleic acids, or libraries composed of either non-natural or
D-amino acids) where a defined number of discrete components are synt
hesized in a variety of permutations.