ISSN:
0006-3525
Keywords:
Chemistry
;
Polymer and Materials Science
Source:
Wiley InterScience Backfile Collection 1832-2000
Topics:
Chemistry and Pharmacology
Notes:
A straightforward hierarchical statistical-mechanical approach is shown to enable one to describe the stability of the alpha helix in the presence of side-chain interactions. The formulation can be used with even the simple nearest-neighbor models and it is demonstrated explicitly with the popular 2 × 2 Zimm-Bragg model [B. H. Zimm and J. K. Bragg (1959) J. Chem. Physics 31, 526-535]. It involves a conceptual dissection of the polypeptide chain into interacting blocks; the behavior of any block with side-chain interactions is treated then with conventional binding polynomial techniques. This dissection is a manifestation of “nesting,” which is a hierarchical framework for the description of the behavior of complex macromoecules [C. H. Robert, H. Decker, B. Richey, S. J. Gill, and J. Wyman (1987) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 84, 1891-1895]. The method is demonstrated through applications to existing detailed data for the pH and salt dependences of the helix-coil transition in the S peptide and in synthetic peptides.
Additional Material:
5 Ill.
Type of Medium:
Electronic Resource
URL:
http://dx.doi.org/10.1002/bip.360300311
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