Combinatorial chemistry building block coupling

Combinatorial Chemistry. Figure 2 Chemical libraries are prepared either by parallel synthesis or by the split-and-recombine method. In the latter case, coupling m building blocks in m separated reaction flasks through n synthetic cycles on a beaded polymer carrier generates a combinatorial library with nf individual compounds and one compound per bead. 

Beginning in the late 1950s work in peptide synthesis was facilitated by the availabihty of protected amino acids, coupling agents, and pure solvents from commercial vendors. These chemical companies utilized chemistry mostly developed in academic laboratories. This synergism continues to the present and will be ongoing in the future as new peptide chemistry develops, especially for the building blocks necessary for combinatorial chenoistry. 

Not surprisingly, combinatorial chemistry originated from linear assembly strategies developed in peptide and oligonucleotide chemistry (cf. Chapter 2), since both building blocks and coupling chemistry have been extensively studied in solution as well as on solid support. 

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