Caged chemotactic peptides

This work has as its ultimate goal the creation of a concentration spike of a chemoattractant peptide in a time-resolved and spatially defined way usi ng a light pulse. This strategy requires "caging" the peptide with a photoc hemically removable group. Model studies used alanine ethyl ester in reduct ive amination with nitrobenzaldehydes to form two different N-nitrobenzyl d erivatives. An fMLF peptide bearing these two N-terminal nitrobenzyl groups was also prepared. The yield and kinetics of their deprotection to return the fMLF peptide were determined. It was established that the caged peptide s have vastly reduced biological activity as chemoattractants, as designed.