Complexation of peptide with Cu2+ responsible to inducing and enhancing the formation of alpha-helix conformation

Biometals. 2000 Dec;13(4):349-59. doi: 10.1023/a:1009249816652.

Abstract

Role of some metal ions on the conformations of peptides was examined by using a series of short alanine-based peptides with single Trp-His (W-H) interaction in different environments. Circular dichroism (CD), Trp (W) fluorescence emission, and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy revealed that there is a conformational role of Cu2+ in inducing and enhancing the formation of alpha-helix conformation. The complexation of the peptide with Cu2+ is responsible to the conformational effect because the chelation is able to stabilize peptide with an alpha-helix conformation. The possible factors affecting the role of Cu2+ are discussed in the paper. The results in this paper are useful to understand the important structural role of Cu2+ in protein folding and the possible mechanism in some neurodegenerative diseases such as Alzheimer's disease.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Binding Sites
  • Circular Dichroism
  • Copper / chemistry
  • Drug Stability
  • In Vitro Techniques
  • Models, Molecular
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Peptides / chemical synthesis
  • Peptides / chemistry*
  • Protein Binding
  • Protein Structure, Secondary
  • Spectrometry, Fluorescence
  • Spectroscopy, Fourier Transform Infrared

Substances

  • Peptides
  • Copper