Synthesising peptide bonds!

[BeefTenderloin]

Long story short, I wanted to buy some miracle berries, due to their odd ability to change the flavour receptors on one's tongue. However, they're £15 for a packet of 10 tablets, PLUS postage and packaging. So, instead of just buying it, I looked it up and found that the active protein in miracle berries is called "Miraculin". A similar protein, Circulin also has the same effect.

Now I want to find out how peptide bonds are formed in a laboratory, so that I can try and make some at home.

[lajoswinkler]

It's a glycoprotein.

You can't make that in a lab from simple chemicals because it's extremely complicated molecule.

That's why we have bacteria for. You take a bacteria and modify its genome so that it produces miraculin. Then you harvest and purify the product. People are still working on that. It's biotechnology. Very expensive. You can't do that at home.

[softweir]

You may not even be able to do it using bacteria. Bacteria can easily be persuaded to synthesise protein chains, but the rules they use to attach carbohydrate chains to proteins are significantly different from those used by eukaryotes such as plants and animals. This means that many glycoproteins can't be synthesised by genetically engineering bacteria - they come out with the wrong chains stuck in the wrong places.

Yeast are rather better at it, because they are eukaryotes, but even then there can be issues and researchers have been known to screen hundreds of yeast strains to find one that can synthesise a given glycoprotein.

[BeefTenderloin]

How about Curculin? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Curculin

[lajoswinkler]

Yes, but the basic thing is that you can't make this in a chemical reactor. Even making small oligopeptides is very complicated on very small scales. That's where genetic engineering steps in.

[Dkmdlb]

I'll pay for your miracle berries if you have a bitcoin address...

[BeefTenderloin]

While I do both have bitcoin, and massively appreciate the offer, I can't help but feel that your bitcoins could be better spent

[BeefTenderloin]

Well then, as it is becoming obvious I will not be able to synthesise neither Miraculin nor Curculin, could one still synthesise a simple peptide bond?

[lajoswinkler]

Yes, it is possible.

You can make a dipeptide, a tripeptide and other oligopeptides, but the more peptides it contains, the progressively more work you have to do.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glycylglycine

[Dkmdlb]

I can't help but feel that your bitcoins could be better spent

This coming from someone who has never tried miracle berries!

[BeefTenderloin]

This coming from someone who has never tried miracle berries!

I don't even know how to pay with bitcoin

[BeefTenderloin]

Been looking into synthesising glycoglyciglycoglycin (I think that's how it's spelt!) But I can't find a method, or at least, a well written one. Can anyone help?