Synthesis on Cellulose and Other Laminar Supports

Similarly to the tea bag approach, pieces of any solid-phase support suitable for solid-phase synthesis can be used for parallel peptide preparation. One of the first materials used in this manner was paper. Frank used paper disks [68,69] (Whatman 3MM, 1.5 cm diameter) packed into columns of a multicolumn continuous flow synthesizer. Prior to the synthesis, the paper was derivatized with p-alkoxybenzyl linkage to allow for the cleavage with trifluoroa-cetic acid. The disks can be easily labeled with a pencil, sorted, and combined depending on the common amino acid to be coupled at the next step. 

Cotton has mechanical properties superior to those of paper, and was used in a similar way by Lebl and colleagues [70,71]. Researchers from the Rockefeller University used polystyrene-grafted polyethylene film [72,73], while scientists from Pfizer used material prepared from two sheets of polypropylene mesh with resin sandwiched in between [74], The sandwich was fused together with a polymer with a low melting point. 

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