‘Exploration and Expansion’ in Peptide Sequence: Discovery of Structurally-Optimized Polymyxin Derivatives Facilitated by Peptide Scanning and in situ Screening Chemistry

Peptides can be converted to highly active compounds by introducing appropriate substituents on the suitable amino acid residue. Although modifiable residues in peptides can be systematically identified by peptide scanning methodologies, there is no practical method for optimization at the “scanned” position. With the purpose of using derivatives not only for scanning, but also as a starting point for further chemical functionalization, we herein report the ‘exploration and expansion’ strategy through chemoselective acylation of embedded threonine residues by a serine/threonine ligation (STL) with the help of in situ screening chemistry. We have applied this strategy to the optimization of the polymyxin antibiotics, which were selected as a model system to highlight the power of the rapid expansion of active scanning derivatives. Using this approach, we explored the structure-activity relationships of the polymyxins and successfully prepared derivatives with activity against polymyxin-resistant bacteria and those with P. aeruginosa selective antibacterial activity. This strategy opens up efficient structural exploration and further optimization of peptide sequences.