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73-412: The alpha helix is the most common structural arrangement in the secondary structure of proteins . It is also the most extreme type of local structure, and it is the local structure that is most easily predicted from a sequence of amino acids. The alpha helix has a right-handed helix conformation in which every backbone N−H group hydrogen bonds to the backbone C=O group of the amino acid that

146-483: A leucine zipper , which is a type of coiled-coil. These hydrophobic residues pack together in the interior of the helix bundle. In general, the fifth and seventh residues (the e and g positions) have opposing charges and form a salt bridge stabilized by electrostatic interactions. Fibrous proteins such as keratin or the "stalks" of myosin or kinesin often adopt coiled-coil structures, as do several dimerizing proteins. A pair of coiled-coils –

219-421: A potassium channel tetramer. Protein secondary structure Protein secondary structure is the local spatial conformation of the polypeptide backbone excluding the side chains. The two most common secondary structural elements are alpha helices and beta sheets , though beta turns and omega loops occur as well. Secondary structure elements typically spontaneously form as an intermediate before

292-468: A 3 10 helix is roughly −75°, whereas that for the π-helix is roughly −130°. The general formula for the rotation angle Ω per residue of any polypeptide helix with trans isomers is given by the equation The α-helix is tightly packed; there is almost no free space within the helix. The amino-acid side-chains are on the outside of the helix, and point roughly "downward" (i.e., toward the N-terminus), like

365-409: A billion years of evolution. Moreover, by examining the average hydrophobicity at that and nearby positions, the same alignment might also suggest a pattern of residue solvent accessibility consistent with an α-helix. Taken together, these factors would suggest that the glycine of the original protein adopts α-helical structure, rather than random coil. Several types of methods are used to combine all

438-421: A biopolymer (e.g., "this protein is 40% α-helix and 20% β-sheet .") can be estimated spectroscopically . For proteins, a common method is far-ultraviolet (far-UV, 170–250 nm) circular dichroism . A pronounced double minimum at 208 and 222 nm indicate α-helical structure, whereas a single minimum at 204 nm or 217 nm reflects random-coil or β-sheet structure, respectively. A less common method

511-400: A four- helix bundle  – is a very common structural motif in proteins. For example, it occurs in human growth hormone and several varieties of cytochrome . The Rop protein , which promotes plasmid replication in bacteria, is an interesting case in which a single polypeptide forms a coiled-coil and two monomers assemble to form a four-helix bundle. The amino acids that make up

584-451: A helix and the propensity to extend a helix. At least five artists have made explicit reference to the α-helix in their work: Julie Newdoll in painting and Julian Voss-Andreae , Bathsheba Grossman , Byron Rubin, and Mike Tyka in sculpture. San Francisco area artist Julie Newdoll, who holds a degree in microbiology with a minor in art, has specialized in paintings inspired by microscopic images and molecules since 1990. Her painting "Rise of

657-531: A helix, both because it cannot donate an amide hydrogen bond (having no amide hydrogen), and also because its sidechain interferes sterically with the backbone of the preceding turn – inside a helix, this forces a bend of about 30° in the helix's axis. However, proline is often seen as the first residue of a helix, it is presumed due to its structural rigidity. At the other extreme, glycine also tends to disrupt helices because its high conformational flexibility makes it entropically expensive to adopt

730-425: A highly characteristic sequence motif known as a heptad repeat , in which the motif repeats itself every seven residues along the sequence ( amino acid residues, not DNA base-pairs). The first and especially the fourth residues (known as the a and d positions) are almost always hydrophobic ; the fourth residue is typically leucine  – this gives rise to the name of the structural motif called

803-589: A hydrogen-bond exists if and only if E is less than −0.5 kcal/mol (−2.1 kJ/mol). Although the DSSP formula is a relatively crude approximation of the physical hydrogen-bond energy, it is generally accepted as a tool for defining secondary structure. SST is a Bayesian method to assign secondary structure to protein coordinate data using the Shannon information criterion of Minimum Message Length ( MML ) inference. SST treats any assignment of secondary structure as

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876-584: A linked-chain structure for the fibers. He later joined other researchers (notably the American chemist Maurice Huggins ) in proposing that: Although incorrect in their details, Astbury's models of these forms were correct in essence and correspond to modern elements of secondary structure , the α-helix and the β-strand (Astbury's nomenclature was kept), which were developed by Linus Pauling , Robert Corey and Herman Branson in 1951 (see below); that paper showed both right- and left-handed helices, although in 1960

949-432: A particular helix can be plotted on a helical wheel , a representation that illustrates the orientations of the constituent amino acids (see the article for leucine zipper for such a diagram). Often in globular proteins , as well as in specialized structures such as coiled-coils and leucine zippers , an α-helix will exhibit two "faces" – one containing predominantly hydrophobic amino acids oriented toward

1022-405: A polypeptide chain of roughly correct dimensions on a strip of paper and folded it into a helix, being careful to maintain the planar peptide bonds. After a few attempts, he produced a model with physically plausible hydrogen bonds. Pauling then worked with Corey and Branson to confirm his model before publication. In 1954, Pauling was awarded his first Nobel Prize "for his research into the nature of

1095-429: A potential hypothesis that attempts to explain ( compress ) given protein coordinate data. The core idea is that the best secondary structural assignment is the one that can explain ( compress ) the coordinates of a given protein coordinates in the most economical way, thus linking the inference of secondary structure to lossless data compression . SST accurately delineates any protein chain into regions associated with

1168-625: A pronounced double minimum at around 208 and 222 nm. Infrared spectroscopy is rarely used, since the α-helical spectrum resembles that of a random coil (although these might be discerned by, e.g., hydrogen-deuterium exchange ). Finally, cryo electron microscopy is now capable of discerning individual α-helices within a protein, although their assignment to residues is still an active area of research. Long homopolymers of amino acids often form helices if soluble. Such long, isolated helices can also be detected by other methods, such as dielectric relaxation , flow birefringence , and measurements of

1241-423: A reasonable length. This means that 2 adjacent residues in the primary structure must form the same hydrogen bonding pattern. If the helix or sheet hydrogen bonding pattern is too short they are designated as T or B, respectively. Other protein secondary structure assignment categories exist (sharp turns, Omega loops , etc.), but they are less frequently used. Secondary structure is defined by hydrogen bonding , so

1314-794: A repetitive sequence of hydrogen bonds in which the residues are three, four, or five residues apart respectively. Two types of beta sheet structures exist; a beta bridge has symbol B while longer sets of hydrogen bonds and beta bulges have symbol E . T is used for turns, featuring hydrogen bonds typical of helices, S is used for regions of high curvature (where the angle between C i α C i + 2 α → {\displaystyle {\overrightarrow {C_{i}^{\alpha }C_{i+2}^{\alpha }}}} and C i − 2 α C i α → {\displaystyle {\overrightarrow {C_{i-2}^{\alpha }C_{i}^{\alpha }}}}

1387-504: A small number of diagrams, Heliquest can be used for helical wheels, and NetWheels can be used for helical wheels and helical nets. To programmatically generate a large number of diagrams, helixvis can be used to draw helical wheels and wenxiang diagrams in the R and Python programming languages. Since the α-helix is defined by its hydrogen bonds and backbone conformation, the most detailed experimental evidence for α-helical structure comes from atomic-resolution X-ray crystallography such as

1460-405: Is infrared spectroscopy , which detects differences in the bond oscillations of amide groups due to hydrogen-bonding. Finally, secondary-structure contents may be estimated accurately using the chemical shifts of an initially unassigned NMR spectrum. Predicting protein tertiary structure from only its amino sequence is a very challenging problem (see protein structure prediction ), but using

1533-510: Is a former protein crystallographer now professional sculptor in metal of proteins, nucleic acids, and drug molecules – many of which featuring α-helices, such as subtilisin , human growth hormone , and phospholipase A2 . Mike Tyka is a computational biochemist at the University of Washington working with David Baker . Tyka has been making sculptures of protein molecules since 2010 from copper and steel, including ubiquitin and

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1606-450: Is at least 70°). As of DSSP version 4, PPII helices are also detected based on a combination of backbone torsion angles and the absence of hydrogen bonds compatible with other types. PPII helices have symbol P . A blank (or space) is used if no other rule applies, referring to loops. These eight types are usually grouped into three larger classes: helix ( G , H and I ), strand ( E and B ) and loop ( S , T , and C , where C sometimes

1679-488: Is because of the convenient structural fact that the diameter of an α-helix is about 12 Å (1.2 nm) including an average set of sidechains, about the same as the width of the major groove in B-form DNA , and also because coiled-coil (or leucine zipper) dimers of helices can readily position a pair of interaction surfaces to contact the sort of symmetrical repeat common in double-helical DNA. An example of both aspects

1752-495: Is commonly used to describe the protein secondary structure with single letter codes. The secondary structure is assigned based on hydrogen bonding patterns as those initially proposed by Pauling et al. in 1951 (before any protein structure had ever been experimentally determined). There are eight types of secondary structure that DSSP defines: 'Coil' is often codified as ' ' (space), C (coil) or '–' (dash). The helices (G, H and I) and sheet conformations are all required to have

1825-499: Is four residues earlier in the protein sequence. The alpha helix is also commonly called a: In the early 1930s, William Astbury showed that there were drastic changes in the X-ray fiber diffraction of moist wool or hair fibers upon significant stretching. The data suggested that the unstretched fibers had a coiled molecular structure with a characteristic repeat of ≈5.1 ångströms (0.51 nanometres ). Astbury initially proposed

1898-593: Is identified if E in the following equation is less than -0.5 kcal/mol: where the r A B {\displaystyle r_{AB}} terms indicate the distance between atoms A and B, taken from the carbon (C) and oxygen (O) atoms of the C=O group and the nitrogen (N) and hydrogen (H) atoms of the N-H group. Based on this, nine types of secondary structure are assigned. The 3 10 helix , α helix and π helix have symbols G , H and I and are recognized by having

1971-421: Is likely to be easier that designing proteins with both helices and strands; this has been recently confirmed experimentally. DSSP (algorithm) The DSSP algorithm is the standard method for assigning secondary structure to the amino acids of a protein, given the atomic-resolution coordinates of the protein. The abbreviation is only mentioned once in the 1983 paper describing this algorithm, where it

2044-471: Is misleading and it is more realistic to say that the hydrogen bond potential of the free NH groups at the N-terminus of an α-helix can be satisfied by hydrogen bonding; this can also be regarded as set of interactions between local microdipoles such as C=O···H−N . Coiled-coil α helices are highly stable forms in which two or more helices wrap around each other in a "supercoil" structure. Coiled coils contain

2117-524: Is represented also as blank space). In the original DSSP algorithm, residues were preferentially assigned to α helices, rather than π helices . In 2011, it was shown that DSSP failed to annotate many "cryptic" π helices, which are commonly flanked by α helices. In 2012, DSSP was rewritten so that the assignment of π helices was given preference over α helices, resulting in better detection of π helices. Versions of DSSP from 2.1.0 onwards therefore produce slightly different output from older versions. In 2002,

2190-449: Is that the hydrophobic face of the antimicrobial peptide forms pores in the plasma membrane after associating with the fatty chains at the membrane core. Myoglobin and hemoglobin , the first two proteins whose structures were solved by X-ray crystallography , have very similar folds made up of about 70% α-helix, with the rest being non-repetitive regions, or "loops" that connect the helices. In classifying proteins by their dominant fold,

2263-503: Is the transcription factor Max (see image at left), which uses a helical coiled coil to dimerize, positioning another pair of helices for interaction in two successive turns of the DNA major groove. α-Helices are also the most common protein structure element that crosses biological membranes ( transmembrane protein ), it is presumed because the helical structure can satisfy all backbone hydrogen-bonds internally, leaving no polar groups exposed to

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2336-594: Is the class of conformations that indicate an absence of regular secondary structure. Amino acids vary in their ability to form the various secondary structure elements. Proline and glycine are sometimes known as "helix breakers" because they disrupt the regularity of the α helical backbone conformation; however, both have unusual conformational abilities and are commonly found in turns . Amino acids that prefer to adopt helical conformations in proteins include methionine , alanine , leucine , glutamate and lysine ("MALEK" in amino-acid 1-letter codes); by contrast,

2409-468: Is the name of the Pascal program that implements the algorithm Define Secondary Structure of Proteins . DSSP begins by identifying the intra-backbone hydrogen bonds of the protein using a purely electrostatic definition, assuming partial charges of −0.42 e and +0.20 e to the carbonyl oxygen and amide hydrogen respectively, their opposites assigned to the carbonyl carbon and amide nitrogen. A hydrogen bond

2482-545: The diffusion constant . In stricter terms, these methods detect only the characteristic prolate (long cigar-like) hydrodynamic shape of a helix, or its large dipole moment . Different amino-acid sequences have different propensities for forming α-helical structure. Methionine , alanine , leucine , glutamate , and lysine uncharged ("MALEK" in the amino-acid 1-letter codes) all have especially high helix-forming propensities, whereas proline and glycine have poor helix-forming propensities. Proline either breaks or kinks

2555-401: The entropic cost associated with the folding of the polypeptide chain is not compensated for by a sufficient amount of stabilizing interactions. In general, the backbone hydrogen bonds of α-helices are considered slightly weaker than those found in β-sheets , and are readily attacked by the ambient water molecules. However, in more hydrophobic environments such as the plasma membrane , or in

2628-469: The i  + 4 spacing adds three more atoms to the H-bonded loop compared to the tighter 3 10 helix, and on average, 3.6 amino acids are involved in one ring of α-helix. The subscripts refer to the number of atoms (including the hydrogen) in the closed loop formed by the hydrogen bond. Residues in α-helices typically adopt backbone ( φ ,  ψ ) dihedral angles around (−60°, −45°), as shown in

2701-455: The Alpha Helix" (2003) features human figures arranged in an α helical arrangement. According to the artist, "the flowers reflect the various types of sidechains that each amino acid holds out to the world". This same metaphor is also echoed from the scientist's side: "β sheets do not show a stiff repetitious regularity but flow in graceful, twisting curves, and even the α-helix is regular more in

2774-512: The Glycine-xxx-Glycine (or small-xxx-small) motif. α-Helices under axial tensile deformation, a characteristic loading condition that appears in many alpha-helix-rich filaments and tissues, results in a characteristic three-phase behavior of stiff-soft-stiff tangent modulus. Phase I corresponds to the small-deformation regime during which the helix is stretched homogeneously, followed by phase II, in which alpha-helical turns break mediated by

2847-525: The Structural Classification of Proteins database maintains a large category specifically for all-α proteins. Hemoglobin then has an even larger-scale quaternary structure , in which the functional oxygen-binding molecule is made up of four subunits. α-Helices have particular significance in DNA binding motifs, including helix-turn-helix motifs, leucine zipper motifs and zinc finger motifs. This

2920-541: The aggregate effect of the individual microdipoles from the carbonyl groups of the peptide bond pointing along the helix axis. The effects of this macrodipole are a matter of some controversy. α-helices often occur with the N-terminal end bound by a negatively charged group, sometimes an amino acid side chain such as glutamate or aspartate , or sometimes a phosphate ion. Some regard the helix macrodipole as interacting electrostatically with such groups. Others feel that this

2993-508: The amino acid sequence were the Chou–Fasman method and the GOR method . Although such methods claimed to achieve ~60% accurate in predicting which of the three states (helix/sheet/coil) a residue adopts, blind computing assessments later showed that the actual accuracy was much lower. A significant increase in accuracy (to nearly ~80%) was made by exploiting multiple sequence alignment ; knowing

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3066-570: The available data to form a 3-state prediction, including neural networks , hidden Markov models and support vector machines . Modern prediction methods also provide a confidence score for their predictions at every position. Secondary-structure prediction methods were evaluated by the Critical Assessment of protein Structure Prediction (CASP) experiments and continuously benchmarked, e.g. by EVA (benchmark) . Based on these tests,

3139-447: The branches of an evergreen tree ( Christmas tree effect). This directionality is sometimes used in preliminary, low-resolution electron-density maps to determine the direction of the protein backbone. Helices observed in proteins can range from four to over forty residues long, but a typical helix contains about ten amino acids (about three turns). In general, short polypeptides do not exhibit much α-helical structure in solution, since

3212-419: The chemical bond and its application to the elucidation of the structure of complex substances" (such as proteins), prominently including the structure of the α-helix. The amino acids in an α-helix are arranged in a right-handed helical structure where each amino acid residue corresponds to a 100° turn in the helix (i.e., the helix has 3.6 residues per turn), and a translation of 1.5 Å (0.15 nm) along

3285-415: The combined pattern of pitch and hydrogen bonding. The α-helices can be identified in protein structure using several computational methods, such as DSSP (Define  Secondary Structure of Protein). Similar structures include the 3 10 helix ( i  + 3 → i hydrogen bonding) and the π-helix ( i  + 5 → i hydrogen bonding). The α-helix can be described as a 3.6 13 helix, since

3358-510: The correct hydrogen bonds. The concept of secondary structure was first introduced by Kaj Ulrik Linderstrøm-Lang at Stanford in 1952. Other types of biopolymers such as nucleic acids also possess characteristic secondary structures . The most common secondary structures are alpha helices and beta sheets . Other helices, such as the 3 10 helix and π helix , are calculated to have energetically favorable hydrogen-bonding patterns but are rarely observed in natural proteins except at

3431-426: The crystal structure of myoglobin showed that the right-handed form is the common one. Hans Neurath was the first to show that Astbury's models could not be correct in detail, because they involved clashes of atoms. Neurath's paper and Astbury's data inspired H. S. Taylor , Maurice Huggins and Bragg and collaborators to propose models of keratin that somewhat resemble the modern α-helix. Two key developments in

3504-421: The ends of α helices due to unfavorable backbone packing in the center of the helix. Other extended structures such as the polyproline helix and alpha sheet are rare in native state proteins but are often hypothesized as important protein folding intermediates. Tight turns and loose, flexible loops link the more "regular" secondary structure elements. The random coil is not a true secondary structure, but

3577-408: The ends. Homopolymers of amino acids (such as polylysine ) can adopt α-helical structure at low temperature that is "melted out" at high temperatures. This helix–coil transition was once thought to be analogous to protein denaturation . The statistical mechanics of this transition can be modeled using an elegant transfer matrix method, characterized by two parameters: the propensity to initiate

3650-419: The exact definition of a hydrogen bond is critical. The standard hydrogen-bond definition for secondary structure is that of DSSP , which is a purely electrostatic model. It assigns charges of ± q 1  ≈ 0.42 e to the carbonyl carbon and oxygen, respectively, and charges of ± q 2  ≈ 0.20 e to the amide hydrogen and nitrogen, respectively. The electrostatic energy is According to DSSP,

3723-510: The example shown at right. It is clear that all the backbone carbonyl oxygens point downward (toward the C-terminus) but splay out slightly, and the H-bonds are approximately parallel to the helix axis. Protein structures from NMR spectroscopy also show helices well, with characteristic observations of nuclear Overhauser effect (NOE) couplings between atoms on adjacent helical turns. In some cases,

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3796-428: The following assignment types: SST detects π and 3 10 helical caps to standard α -helices, and automatically assembles the various extended strands into consistent β-pleated sheets. It provides a readable output of dissected secondary structural elements, and a corresponding PyMol -loadable script to visualize the assigned secondary structural elements individually. The rough secondary-structure content of

3869-529: The full distribution of amino acids that occur at a position (and in its vicinity, typically ~7 residues on either side) throughout evolution provides a much better picture of the structural tendencies near that position. For illustration, a given protein might have a glycine at a given position, which by itself might suggest a random coil there. However, multiple sequence alignment might reveal that helix-favoring amino acids occur at that position (and nearby positions) in 95% of homologous proteins spanning nearly

3942-460: The fully helical state. It has been shown that α-helices are more stable, robust to mutations and designable than β-strands in natural proteins, and also in artificially designed proteins. The 3 most popular ways of visualizing the alpha-helical secondary structure of oligopeptide sequences are (1) a helical wheel , (2) a wenxiang diagram, and (3) a helical net. Each of these can be visualized with various software packages and web servers. To generate

4015-406: The helical axis. Dunitz describes how Pauling's first article on the theme in fact shows a left-handed helix, the enantiomer of the true structure. Short pieces of left-handed helix sometimes occur with a large content of achiral glycine amino acids, but are unfavorable for the other normal, biological L -amino acids . The pitch of the alpha-helix (the vertical distance between consecutive turns of

4088-599: The helix) is 5.4 Å (0.54 nm), which is the product of 1.5 and 3.6. The most important thing is that the N-H group of one amino acid forms a hydrogen bond with the C=O group of the amino acid four residues earlier; this repeated i  + 4 → i hydrogen bonding is the most prominent characteristic of an α-helix. Official international nomenclature specifies two ways of defining α-helices, rule 6.2 in terms of repeating φ , ψ torsion angles (see below) and rule 6.3 in terms of

4161-474: The image at right. In more general terms, they adopt dihedral angles such that the ψ dihedral angle of one residue and the φ dihedral angle of the next residue sum to roughly −105°. As a consequence, α-helical dihedral angles, in general, fall on a diagonal stripe on the Ramachandran diagram (of slope −1), ranging from (−90°, −15°) to (−70°, −35°). For comparison, the sum of the dihedral angles for

4234-535: The inclusion of secondary structure information in addition to simple sequence information. This is sometimes less useful in RNA because base pairing is much more highly conserved than sequence. Distant relationships between proteins whose primary structures are unalignable can sometimes be found by secondary structure. It has been shown that α-helices are more stable, robust to mutations, and designable than β-strands in natural proteins, thus designing functional all-α proteins

4307-458: The individual hydrogen bonds can be observed directly as a small scalar coupling in NMR. There are several lower-resolution methods for assigning general helical structure. The NMR chemical shifts (in particular of the C, C and C′) and residual dipolar couplings are often characteristic of helices. The far-UV (170–250 nm) circular dichroism spectrum of helices is also idiosyncratic, exhibiting

4380-420: The interior of the protein, in the hydrophobic core , and one containing predominantly polar amino acids oriented toward the solvent -exposed surface of the protein. Changes in binding orientation also occur for facially-organized oligopeptides. This pattern is especially common in antimicrobial peptides , and many models have been devised to describe how this relates to their function. Common to many of them

4453-569: The large aromatic residues ( tryptophan , tyrosine and phenylalanine ) and C -branched amino acids ( isoleucine , valine , and threonine ) prefer to adopt β-strand conformations. However, these preferences are not strong enough to produce a reliable method of predicting secondary structure from sequence alone. Low frequency collective vibrations are thought to be sensitive to local rigidity within proteins, revealing beta structures to be generically more rigid than alpha or disordered proteins. Neutron scattering measurements have directly connected

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4526-567: The manner of a flower stem, whose branching nodes show the influence of environment, developmental history, and the evolution of each part to match its own idiosyncratic function." Julian Voss-Andreae is a German-born sculptor with degrees in experimental physics and sculpture. Since 2001 Voss-Andreae creates "protein sculptures" based on protein structure with the α-helix being one of his preferred objects. Voss-Andreae has made α-helix sculptures from diverse materials including bamboo and whole trees. A monument Voss-Andreae created in 2004 to celebrate

4599-485: The membrane if the sidechains are hydrophobic. Proteins are sometimes anchored by a single membrane-spanning helix, sometimes by a pair, and sometimes by a helix bundle, most classically consisting of seven helices arranged up-and-down in a ring such as for rhodopsins (see image at right) and other G protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs). The structural stability between pairs of α-Helical transmembrane domains rely on conserved membrane interhelical packing motifs, for example,

4672-543: The memory of Linus Pauling , the discoverer of the α-helix, is fashioned from a large steel beam rearranged in the structure of the α-helix. The 10-foot-tall (3 m), bright-red sculpture stands in front of Pauling's childhood home in Portland, Oregon . Ribbon diagrams of α-helices are a prominent element in the laser-etched crystal sculptures of protein structures created by artist Bathsheba Grossman , such as those of insulin , hemoglobin , and DNA polymerase . Byron Rubin

4745-417: The modeling of the modern α-helix were: the correct bond geometry, thanks to the crystal structure determinations of amino acids and peptides and Pauling's prediction of planar peptide bonds ; and his relinquishing of the assumption of an integral number of residues per turn of the helix. The pivotal moment came in the early spring of 1948, when Pauling caught a cold and went to bed. Being bored, he drew

4818-513: The most accurate methods were Psipred , SAM, PORTER, PROF, and SABLE. The chief area for improvement appears to be the prediction of β-strands; residues confidently predicted as β-strand are likely to be so, but the methods are apt to overlook some β-strand segments (false negatives). There is likely an upper limit of ~90% prediction accuracy overall, due to the idiosyncrasies of the standard method ( DSSP ) for assigning secondary-structure classes (helix/strand/coil) to PDB structures, against which

4891-470: The predictions are benchmarked. Accurate secondary-structure prediction is a key element in the prediction of tertiary structure , in all but the simplest ( homology modeling ) cases. For example, a confidently predicted pattern of six secondary structure elements βαββαβ is the signature of a ferredoxin fold. Both protein and nucleic acid secondary structures can be used to aid in multiple sequence alignment . These alignments can be made more accurate by

4964-426: The presence of co-solvents such as trifluoroethanol (TFE), or isolated from solvent in the gas phase, oligopeptides readily adopt stable α-helical structure. Furthermore, crosslinks can be incorporated into peptides to conformationally stabilize helical folds. Crosslinks stabilize the helical state by entropically destabilizing the unfolded state and by removing enthalpically stabilized "decoy" folds that compete with

5037-416: The protein folds into its three dimensional tertiary structure . Secondary structure is formally defined by the pattern of hydrogen bonds between the amino hydrogen and carboxyl oxygen atoms in the peptide backbone . Secondary structure may alternatively be defined based on the regular pattern of backbone dihedral angles in a particular region of the Ramachandran plot regardless of whether it has

5110-459: The relatively constrained α-helical structure. Estimated differences in free energy change , Δ(Δ G ), estimated in kcal/mol per residue in an α-helical configuration, relative to alanine arbitrarily set as zero. Higher numbers (more positive free energy changes) are less favoured. Significant deviations from these average numbers are possible, depending on the identities of the neighbouring residues. A helix has an overall dipole moment due to

5183-446: The rupture of groups of H-bonds. Phase III is typically associated with large-deformation covalent bond stretching. Alpha-helices in proteins may have low-frequency accordion-like motion as observed by the Raman spectroscopy and analyzed via the quasi-continuum model. Helices not stabilized by tertiary interactions show dynamic behavior, which can be mainly attributed to helix fraying from

5256-476: The simpler secondary structure definitions is more tractable. Early methods of secondary-structure prediction were restricted to predicting the three predominate states: helix, sheet, or random coil. These methods were based on the helix- or sheet-forming propensities of individual amino acids, sometimes coupled with rules for estimating the free energy of forming secondary structure elements. The first widely used techniques to predict protein secondary structure from

5329-570: The spectral feature at ~1 THz to collective motions of the secondary structure of beta-barrel protein GFP. Hydrogen bonding patterns in secondary structures may be significantly distorted, which makes automatic determination of secondary structure difficult. There are several methods for formally defining protein secondary structure (e.g., DSSP , DEFINE, STRIDE , ScrewFit, SST ). The Dictionary of Protein Secondary Structure, in short DSSP,

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