Patent ID: 7425608

Claim:
A method for producing substantially pure metallopeptides, comprising the steps of: (a) synthesizing a sequence of the formula Aaa-MBD-Baa cleavably bound to solid phase, wherein MBD is a metal ion-binding domain consisting of three amino acid residues with two of said residues each comprising a backbone nitrogen atom available to complex with the coordination sphere of a metal ion, the metal ion to be provided, and with one of said residues comprising a backbone nitrogen atom available to complex with the coordination sphere of a metal ion and a side chain comprising one sulfur atom protected by an orthogonal S-protecting group compatible with peptide solid phase synthesis and removable without cleaving the peptide from solid phase, such that the sequence is of the structure: where: Aaa and Baa each comprise from 0 to about 20 amino acid residues, provided that at least one of Aaa and Baa comprise at least 1 amino acid residue and the sequence is cleavably bound to solid phase through Aaa or Bbb, SPG is an orthogonal S-protecting group bound to a sulfur atom forming a part of an amino acid side chain, and R is in each instance independently hydrogen or an amino acid side chain; (b) in a single pot, deprotecting the sulfur atom protected by an orthogonal S-protecting group by cleaving the said orthogonal S-protecting group without cleaving the sequence from the solid phase and complexing a metal ion to the MBD; and (c) cleaving the sequences from the solid phase, thereby providing a metallopeptide of the structure: wherein Aaa, Bbb and R are as defined above and M is a tetradentate metal ion, metal-oxo group, metal-nitride group or N-nitrido substituted metal-nitride.