A protein synthesis company offers a variety of services related to proteins and peptides used in pharmaceutical research. These companies use recombinant DNA technology and/or hybridoma cell line development to produce these molecules in large-scale, enabling the creation of new medicines for diseases like cancer, infectious disease, and more.

In their lab, Pentelute’s team had already been working on a process to synthesize long chains of amino acids, or peptides. This is a more efficient approach than the process of making whole proteins, which can require weeks to complete and must be carefully folded into a biologically active shape.

Finding the Best Protein Synthesis Company for Your Research

The peptide-making machine uses a technique called flow chemistry, in which chemicals are moved around the reaction vessel using mechanical pumps and valves. This optimizes the reactions that form the links between the amino acids in a chain of peptides. The improved protocol allows them to produce chains 400 amino acids long, and peptides up to 25 amino acids in length, within about 2.5 minutes.

For long proteins, such as sortase A or proinsulin, they have to wait a bit longer, because the byproducts build up and require additional steps to purify the desired protein from all the other byproducts. This is the step that typically slows down protein production, and it’s what makes the difference between a few hours and a full day.

The researchers have also developed a way to add non-standard amino acids to the chains, giving them new functions and extending their half-lives. This approach is used by several blockbuster drugs, including the diabetes medications SaxendaR and OzempicR/WegovyR. This is a much-needed improvement in the process of developing protein-based drugs, which often suffer from problems such as short half-lives and unfavorable side effects.

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