Native Chemical Ligation at Glutamine

The desulfurization reaction introduced by Van and Dawson as a postnative chemical ligation step greatly expanded the scope of ligation chemistry beyond Xaa-Cys (Xaa is any amino acid) by making ligation at Xaa-Phe, Xaa-Val, Xaa-Lys, Xaa-Leu, Xaa-Thr, and Xaa-Pro junctions accessible in the synthesis of functional proteins. A new ligation site based on Xaa-Gln utilizing gamma-mercaptoglutamine is reported, and several examples on the efficiency of ligation coupled with desulfurization are provided.