Abstract
Conjugation of biomolecules for stable presentation is an essential step toward reliable chemically defined platforms for cell culture studies. In this work, we describe the formation of a stable and site-specific amide bond via the coupling of a cysteine terminated peptide at low concentration to an azlactone containing copolymer coating. A copolymer of polyethylene glycol methyl ether methacrylate-ran-vinyl azlactone-ran-glycidyl methacrylate P(PEGMEMA-r-VDM-r-GMA) was used to form a thin coating (20-30 nm) on silicon and polycarbonate substrates. The formation and stability of coating-peptide bonds for peptides containing free thiols and amines were quantified by X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS) after exposure to cell culture conditions. Peptides containing a thiol as the only nucleophile coupled via a thioester bond; however, the bond was labile under cell culture conditions and almost all the bound peptides were displaced from the surface over a period of 2 days. Coupling with N-terminal primary amine peptides resulted in the formation of an amide bond with low efficiency (<20%). In contrast, peptides containing an N-terminal cysteine, which contain both nucleophiles (free thiol and amine) in close proximity, bound with 67% efficiency under neutral pH, and were stable under the same conditions for 2 weeks. Control studies confirm that the stable amide formation was a result of an intramolecular rearrangement through a N-acyl intermediate that resembles native chemical ligation. Through a combination of XPS and cell culture studies, we show that the cysteine terminated peptides undergo a native chemical ligation process at low peptide concentration in aqueous media, short reaction time, and at room temperature resulting in the stable presentation of peptides beyond 2 weeks for cell culture studies.