Selective copper-mediated cross-coupling of pyroglutamate post-translational modifications

Pyroglutamate is a cyclic N-terminal posttranslational modifica-tion that occurs in both proteins and peptide hormones. The prevalence and biological roles of pyroglutamate are little under-stood, in part due to limited tools to identify, quantify, and ma-nipulate its pyrrolidinone structure. Selective modification of pyroglutamate residues in complex polypeptides may provide unique tools to better understand its biological roles, and to al-low late-stage diversification of biologically active pyrogluta-mate-containing sequences. This work describes a copper-catalyzed N–H cross-coupling of unprotected peptides that is selective for N-terminal pyroglutamate residues. The reaction is operationally simple under mild conditions, and tolerates almost all canonical residues. Mechanistic studies point to a key role for a multidentate copper-binding mode of the extended polypeptide structure in delivering the observed reactivity. The reaction al-lows direct labeling and identification of a pyroglutamate hormone present in porcine intestinal extracts.