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Pengo, Paolo; Pasquato, Lucia; Moro, Stefano; Brigo, Alessandro; Fogolari, Federico; Broxterman, Quirinus B.; Kaptein, Bernard; Scrimin, Paolo
Angewandte Chemie (International ed.), 07/2003, Volume: 42, Issue: 29Journal Article
The long and the short of it: Just by changing the polarity of the solvent the highly folded heptapeptide Ac‐Aib‐L‐(αMe)Val‐Aib2‐L‐His‐NH2 converts from an α into a 310 helix (see picture). The equilibrium constant between the two conformations correlates with the empirical solvent polarity parameter E${{{\rm {\rm N}}\atop {\rm {\rm T}}}$. Molecular dynamics calculations show that the peptide elongates (310 helix) or shortens (α helix) on switching from one conformation to the other.
