Combinatorial Synthesis of Peptide Arrays with a Laser Printer

A revolution in generating high-density peptide arrays

PEPperPRINT's peptide microarray platform is based on a new approach of combinatorial synthesis: Instead of using wet-chemical synthesis & spotters or lithographic synthesis, amino acid microparticles are printed directly with a custom 24-color laser printer in high spot resolution on a coated glass slide. After printing of all different amino acid microparticles in less than a minute, coupling is initiated by particle melting. This releases the embedded amino acids and enables chemical binding to reactive groups (Merrifield synthesis) on the glass slide surface. In accordance with solid phase Fmoc chemistry, a cycle of synthesis is completed after removal of excessive material by washing and cleavage of the N-terminal Fmoc protection group. Each cycle is repeated until a full peptide microarray is synthesized.

Along with the low toner consumption of a laser printer, the new approach combines low material requirement with fast printing speed, high spot resolution and digital flexibility. This enables the generation of high density peptide microarrays with flexible content in a cost-effective manner. Custom peptide microarrays can be manufactured and supplied in any quantity from single microarrays to hundreds of chips in about two to three weeks. Applications have been established for:

- Antigen/Biomarker Discovery

- Antibody epitope mapping and permutation scan

- Conformational epitope mapping

- Serum antibody profiling before and after drug administration

- Determination of humoral immune response to different adjuvants

- Vaccine and peptide drug development

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