title: Helical aromatic oligoamides: reliable, readily predictable folding from the combination of rigidified structural motifs.
abstract: Factors responsible for the folding of aromatic oligoamides with backbones rigidified by local three-center H-bonds were investigated. The stability of the three-center H-bonds was quantified by the half-lives of amide proton-deuterium exchange reactions, which show that the three-center H-bonds were largely intact at room temperature in the oligomer examined. This result is consistent with our current and previous 2D NMR studies. The overall helical conformation of nonamer 1 was found by variable-temperature NOESY studies to be dynamic. As temperature rose, the end-to-end NOEs rapidly disappeared, while the amide side chain NOEs were still readily detectable, corresponding to the "breath" and stretching of the helix by slightly twisting the local H-bonded rings. Based on the simple repetition of the same structural motif and local conformational preference, undecamer 2 was found to fold into well-defined helical conformation. The predictability of the folding of these backbone-rigidified aromatic oligoamides was demonstrated by a simple modeling method using structural parameters from oligomers with known crystal structures. The reliability and generality of the modeling methods were shown by the excellent agreement between the modeled structures corresponding to 1 and 2 and data from NOESY studies.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Natural Sciences Complex, University at Buffalo, The State University of New York, Buffalo, New York 14260, USA.
authors.forename: Lihua
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Yuan
authors.forename: Huaqiang
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.forename: Kazuhiro
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Yamato
authors.forename: Adam R
authors.initials: AR
authors.lastname: Sanford
authors.forename: Wen
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.forename: Hanudatta S
authors.initials: HS
authors.lastname: Atreya
authors.forename: Dinesh K
authors.initials: DK
authors.lastname: Sukumaran
authors.forename: Thomas
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Szyperski
authors.forename: Bing
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Gong
mesh_terms: D000577:Amides / Q000737:chemistry*; D041961:Deuterium Exchange Measurement; D006860:Hydrogen Bonding; D009682:Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy / Q000379:methods*; D008968:Molecular Conformation; D009842:Oligopeptides / Q000737:chemistry; D011522:Protons; D013696:Temperature
chemical_list: D000577:Amides; D009842:Oligopeptides; D011522:Protons