Combinatorial Synthesis of Peptide Arrays onto a Microchip
Mario Beyer,1*
Alexander Nesterov,1*
Ines Block,1
Kai König,1
Thomas Felgenhauer,1
Simon Fernandez,1
Klaus Leibe,1
Gloria Torralba,2
Michael Hausmann,2
Ulrich Trunk,2
Volker Lindenstruth,2
F. Ralf Bischoff,1
Volker Stadler,1
Frank Breitling1
Arrays promise to advance biology through parallel screening for binding partners. We show the combinatorial in situ synthesis of 40,000 peptide spots per square centimeter on a microchip. Our variant Merrifield synthesis immobilizes activated amino acids as monomers within particles, which are successively attracted by electric fields generated on each pixel electrode of the chip. With all different amino acids addressed, particles are melted at once to initiate coupling. Repetitive coupling cycles should allow for the translation of whole proteomes into arrays of overlapping peptides that could be used for proteome research and antibody profiling.
1 German Cancer Research Center, INF 580, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany.
2 Kirchhoff Institute for Physics, University of Heidelberg, INF 227, 69120 Heidelberg, Germany.
* These authors contributed equally to this work.
These authors contributed equally to this work.
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: f.breitling{at}dkfz.de (F.B.); r.bischoff{at}dkfz.de (F.R.B.); v.stadler{at}dkfz.de (V.S.); voli{at}kip.uni-heidelberg.de (V.L.)
