Methods of peptide conformation studies.
In solution most of the peptides assume multiple flexible conformations. Determination of the dominant conformers and evaluation of their populations is the aim of peptide conformation studies, in which theoretical and experimental methods play complementary roles. Molecular dynamics or Monte Carlo methods are quite effective in searching the conformational space accessible to a peptide but they are not able to estimate, precisely enough, the populations of various conformations. Therefore, they must be supplemented by experimental data. In this paper, a short review of the experimental methods, most widely used in peptide conformational studies, is presented. Among them NMR plays the leading role. Valuable information is also obtained from hydrogen exchange, fluorescence resonance energy transfer, and circular dichroism measurements. The advantages and shortcomings of these methods are discussed.
Bierzyński
A
A
Institute of Biochemistry and Biophysics, Polish Academy of Sciences, Warszawa. abj@ibb.waw.pl
D002942:Circular Dichroism; D004745:Enkephalins / Q000737:chemistry; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy; D009010:Monte Carlo Method; D010455:Peptides / Q000737:chemistry*; D011487:Protein Conformation; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence
D004745:Enkephalins; D010455:Peptides