Trinuclear gold-catalyzed site-selective alkylation of peptides

Selective modification of peptides has always been a challenging issue. The selective alkylation of peptides can alter the biological activity and physical properties of molecules, and it has gained significant research interest. We herein disclose an intriguing gold-catalyzed alkylation of peptides using bench-stable unactivated alkyl bromides under photoredox catalysis. A wide range of structurally diverse primary, secondary and tertiary alkyl bromides serve as effective coupling partners to precisely connect with the α-C(sp³)–H in glycine residue of peptides. This protocol demonstrates an exceptionally broad scope for alkyl halides and excellent tolerance for a wide range of useful functional groups. A series of relay transformations to construct cyclic peptides, to proceed click reaction and to realize peptide fluorescence labeling further enhance its synthetic practicality. In addition, mechanistic studies and density functional theory (DFT) calculations reveal an inner-sphere and subsequent outer-sphere single electron transfer (SET) mechanism.