Combinatorial split-mix (split and pool) synthesis  is based on the solid-phase synthesis developed by Merrifield. If a combinatorial peptide library is synthesized using 20 amino acids (or other kinds of building blocks) the bead form solid support is divided into 20 equal portions. This is followed by coupling a different amino acid to each portion. The third step is the mixing of all portions. These three steps comprise a cycle. Elongation of the peptide chains can be realized by simply repeating the steps of the cycle.
The procedure is illustrated by the synthesis of a dipeptide library using the same three amino acids as building blocks in both cycles. Each component of this library contains two amino acids arranged in different orders. The amino acids used in couplings are represented by yellow, blue and red circles in the figure. Divergent arrows show dividing solid support resin (green circles) into equal portions, vertical arrows mean coupling and convergent arrows represent mixing and homogenizing the portions of the support.
The figure shows that in the two synthetic cycles 9 dipeptides are formed. In the third and fourth cycles, 27 tripeptides and 81 tetrapeptides would form, respectively.
The "split-mix synthesis" has several outstanding features:
* It is highly efficient. As the figure demonstrates the number of peptides formed in the synthetic process (3, 9, 27, 81) increases exponentially with the number of executed cycles. Using 20 amino acids in each synthetic cycle the number of formed peptides are: 400, 8,000, 160,000 and 3,200,000, respectively. This means that the number of peptides increases exponentially with the number of the executed cycles.
* All peptide sequences are formed in the process that can be deduced by a combination of the amino acids used in the cycles.
* Portioning of the support into equal samples assures formation of the components of the library in nearly equal molar quantities.
* Only a single peptide forms on each bead of the support. This is the consequence of using only one amino acid in the coupling steps. It is completely unknown, however, which is the peptide that occupies a selected bead.
* The split-mix method can be used for the synthesis of organic or any other kind of library that can be prepared from its building blocks in a stepwise process.
In 1990 three groups described methods for preparing peptide libraries by biological methods and one year later Fodor et al. published a remarkable method for synthesis of peptide arrays on small glass slides.
A "parallel synthesis" method was developed by Mario Geysen and his colleagues for preparation of peptide arrays. They synthesized 96 peptides on plastic rods (pins) coated at their ends with the solid support. The pins were immersed into the solution of reagents placed in the wells of a microtiter plate. The method is widely applied particularly by using automatic parallel synthesizers. Although the parallel method is much slower than the real combinatorial one, its advantage is that it is exactly known which peptide or other compound forms on each pin.
Further procedures were developed to combine the advantages of both split-mix and parallel synthesis. In the method described by two groups the solid support was enclosed into permeable plastic capsules together with a radiofrequency tag that carried the code of the compound to be formed in the capsule. The procedure was carried out similar to the split-mix method. In the split step, however, the capsules were distributed among the reaction vessels according to the codes read from the radiofrequency tags of the capsules.
A different method for the same purpose was developed by Furka et al. is named "string synthesis". In this method, the capsules carried no code. They are strung like the pearls in a necklace and placed into the reaction vessels in stringed form. The identity of the capsules, as well as their contents, are stored by their position occupied on the strings. After each coupling step, the capsules are redistributed among new strings according to definite rules.