Elimination and exchange of trifluoroacetate counter-ion from cationic peptides: a critical evaluation of different approaches.

Most synthesized peptides are nowadays produced using solid-phase procedures. Due to cleavage and purification conditions, they are mainly obtained in the presence of trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) and, for cationic peptides, as trifluoroacetate (TF-acetate) salts. However, TF-acetate interferes with physicochemical characterizations using infrared spectroscopy and might significantly affect the in vivo studies. Thus, TF-acetate exchange by another counter-ion is often required. Up to now, the classical procedure has consisted of freeze-drying the peptide several times in the presence of an excess of a stronger acid than TFA (pKa approximately 0): generally HCl (pKa = - 7). This approach means that working at pH < 1 can induce peptide degradation. We therefore tested three different approaches to exchange the tightly bound TF-acetate counter-ion from the dicationic octapeptide lanreotide: (i) reverse-phase HPLC, (ii) ion-exchange resin, and (iii) deprotonation/reprotonation cycle of the amino groups. The first two approaches allow the partial to almost complete exchange of the TF-acetate counter-ion by another ion from an acid weaker than TFA, such as acetic acid (pKa = 4.5), and the third requires a basic solution that permits the complete removal of TF-acetate counter-ion. The efficiency of these three procedures was tested and compared by using different analytical techniques such as 19F-NMR, 1H-NMR and attenuated total reflectance Fourier transformed infrared spectroscopy (ATR FT-IR). We also show that ATR-IR can be used to monitor the TFA removal. The counter-ion exchange procedures described in this study are easy to carry out, fast, harmless and reproducible. Moreover, two of them offer the very interesting possibility of exchanging the initial TF-acetate by any other counter-ion.