Representative Combinatorial Peptide Libraries: An Approach to Reduce both Synthesis and Screening Efforts

A representative combinatorial peptide library technique is proposed to simplify and reduce both synthesis and screening efforts. A multiple column peptide synthesizer was used to perform parallel synthesis of the peptide libraries. The peptide libraries were synthesized with a set of 10 selected amino acids representing the basic physicochemical properties associated with naturally occurring amino acid side-chains. Three series of two-position defined hexapeptide libraries were made and used to map the epitope of a monoclonal antibody, which was raised against the receptor binding domain of Pseudomonas aeruginosa strain K pilin. The capability of the peptide libraries to map and represent other epitope sequences was addressed. The native epitope sequence was mapped successfully together with sequences that were not previously recognized. These results illustrated the feasibility of using the representative peptide library.