Furin activates numerous viral glycoproteins, and its inhibition prevents virus replication and spread. Through the replacement of arginine by the less basic canavanine, new inhibitors targeting furin in the trans-Golgi network were developed. These inhibitors exert potent antiviral activity in cell culture with much lower toxicity than arginine-derived analogues, most likely due to their reduced protonation in the blood circulation. Thus, despite its important physiological functions, furin might be a suitable antiviral drug target.

Here, a postpolymerization modification method for an α‐terminal functionalized poly‐(N‐methyl‐glycine), also known as polysarcosine, is introduced. 4‐(Methylthio)phenyl piperidine‐4‐carboxylate as an initiator for the ring‐opening polymerization of N‐methyl‐glycine‐N‐carboxyanhydride followed by oxidation of the thioester group to yield an α‐terminal reactive 4‐(methylsulfonyl)phenyl piperidine‐4‐carboxylate polymer is utilized. This represents an activated carboxylic acid terminus, allowing straightforward modification with nucleophiles under mild reaction conditions and provides the possibility to introduce a wide variety of nucleophiles as exemplified using small molecules, fluorescent dyes, and model proteins. The new initiator yielded polymers with well‐defined molar mass, low dispersity, and high end‐group fidelity, as observed by gel permeation chromatography, nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, and matrix‐assisted laser desorption/ionization time‐of‐flight mass spectroscopy. The introduced method can be of great interest for bioconjugation, but requires optimization, especially for protein conjugation.

Here we introduce a post-polymerization modification method of an α-terminal functionalized poly-(N-methyl-glycine), also known as polysarcosine. We utilized 4-(methylthio)phenyl piperidine-4-carboxylate as an initiator for the ring-opening polymerization of N-methyl-glycine-N-carboxyanhydride followed by oxidation of the thioester group to yield an α-terminal reactive 4-(methylsulfonyl)phenyl piperidine-4-carboxylate polymer. This represents an activated carboxylic acid terminus, allowing straightforward modification with nucleophiles under mild reaction conditions and provides the possibility to introduce a wide variety of nucleophiles as exemplified using small molecules, fluorescent dyes and model proteins. The new initiator yielded polymers with well-defined molar mass, low dispersity and high end-group fidelity, as observed by gel permeation chromatography (GPC), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-ToF) mass spectroscopy. The introduced method could be of great interest for bioconjugation, but requires optimization, especially for protein conjugation.

Here we introduce a post-polymerization modification method of an α-terminal functionalized poly-(N-methyl-glycine), also known as polysarcosine. We utilized 4-(methylthio)phenyl piperidine-4-carboxylate as an initiator for the ring-opening polymerization of N-methyl-glycine-N-carboxyanhydride followed by oxidation of the thioester group to yield an α-terminal reactive 4-(methylsulfonyl)phenyl piperidine-4-carboxylate polymer. This represents an activated carboxylic acid terminus, allowing straightforward modification with nucleophiles under mild reaction conditions and provides the possibility to introduce a wide variety of nucleophiles as exemplified using small molecules, fluorescent dyes and model proteins. The new initiator yielded polymers with well-defined molar mass, low dispersity and high end-group fidelity, as observed by gel permeation chromatography (GPC), nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy and matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight (MALDI-ToF) mass spectroscopy. The introduced method could be of great interest for bioconjugation, but requires optimization, especially for protein conjugation.