Biological functions as diverse as sexual maturation and reproduction, enzyme inhibition, blood pressure regulation, glucose metabolism, thermal control, analgesia and learning and memory are now thought to be regulated by peptides.
Synthetic peptides are valuable tools in analysis of naturally occurring peptides or proteins.
As a result of all these advancements, examples of rapid synthesis of large polypeptides of up to 140 amino acids are beginning to appear in literature. In spite of the many improvements, peptide chemistry has remained a difficult, costly and exacting science. The subject of peptide synthesis has been reviewed extensively and therefore, in this introduction only some of the major aspects relevant to the synthetic work described in this manual will be accounted briefly. Unfortunately these methods are labour, time, and skill intensive largely due to the unpredictable solubility characteristics of intermediates. Excess soluble reagents are used to drive reactions to completion.