I was synthesizing a peptide which was N-methylated (backbone methylation), but now I want to remove that Methyl group so that it leaves back a normal peptide bond. Is this feasible? If yes then how?
Adam is right, you should re-synthesize the peptide... modifications of the N-term is usually irrevocable without harming the rest of the AA in the sequence. Did you actually mean the N-term modification? Why do you methylate the amide bonds?
Marcus its not the N-term modification. Its one of the amide bond in the peptide which we methylate, so instead of -CO-NH- in the peptide we have -CO-N(CH3)- at that peptide bond.
There are various utility of N-methylated peptide. You can go through some of the paper published from Horst Kessler's group in Department of Chem from Technical University of Munich.
Hi Hitesh,Marcus and Adam are right, it will be best to resynthesize the peptide from scratch. Doing demethylation to the peptide will be tricky and difficult to purify. But, if you still want to try the demethylation, refer to this paper.
Selective C–N bond oxidation: demethylation of N-methyl group in N-arylmethyl-N-methyl-α-amino esters utilizing N-iodosuccinimide (NIS)