Functionalised mesoporous silica: a good opportunity for controlled peptide oligomerisation

In this paper, mesoporous organosilicas functionalised with aminopropyl groups have been successfully used for peptide oligomerisation. For this purpose, three mesoporous silica SBA-15 type containing different amounts of aminopropyl groups were prepared by direct synthesis and using 3-tert-butyloxycarbonylamino propyltriethoxysilane. Thanks to amino groups and under well selected experimental conditions, amino acidsN-carboxyanhydride-polymerisation has been achieved within the pores with control of the physical properties of peptide functionalised hybrid materials. NCA of alanine, side chain protected glutamic acid and methionine were used for this study. For the first time, direct LDI-MS analysis was successfully performed on the resulting covalently bound supported oligomers. To demonstrate the potential application of this class of hybrid bio-organic–inorganic material as supported catalysts, one of the methionine-functionalized OMSs was used to promote disulfide bond formation in a model peptide.