Peptide Synthesis Core Facility

This core facility will construct thousands of peptides, ranging from four to twenty amino acids in length using standard, Fmoc chemistry. These peptides will initially be constructed on solid phase supports, which can either be left in their 96-well format of cleaved to leave peptides in the fluid phase. The Principal Investigator of the core has over 10 years of experience using this technique and has published extensively in this area. Peptides that she has constructed have previously been used in B and T cell epitope mapping of human and monoclonal sera, inhibition of enzymatic reactivities and to map enzymatic active sites. She has previously synthesized peptides for at least tow of the key investigators submitting proposals in this application.

This core facility will serve as a vital resource for several of the major projects, as well as the additional signaling core. Drs. Harley and Dittmer will use peptides from the core to identify major targets of the murine and primate vaccine-induced immune response to Epstein-Barr and Kaposi Sarcoma viruses. Drs. McEver and Centola will use anti-pyrin antibodies. Drs. Thompson and Teague will use peptides through the signaling core and to construct SH2 domains for use in their IL-6 signaling studies. Dr. Coggeshall and the signaling core will use synthetic peptides and phosphopeptides constructed in the core for pull-down experiments. Phosphopeptides have previously been constructed by this laboratory for collaborative studies with Dr. David Kern in the OUHSC Department of Endocrinology. As time and resources allow, this core peptide facility will also be available to other investigators from the Foundation, the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center, Tulsa University, Oklahoma State University, Oklahoma University, and Oklahoma Christian University.