Cover Picture: Chiral Centers in the Side Chains of α-Amino Acids Control the Helical Screw Sense of Peptides (Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 40/2004)

✍ Scribed by Masakazu Tanaka; Yosuke Demizu; Mitsunobu Doi; Masaaki Kurihara; Hiroshi Suemune

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2004
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 64 KB
• Volume: 43
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0044-8249
• DOI: 10.1002/anie.200490139

✦ Synopsis

A tidal vortex (helix) is formed, both right‐ and left‐handed, where a violent tidal current meets a peaceful sea (the picture from Naruto City Tourist Association shows an example at Naruto channel, Japan). In contrast, α‐helices of proteins almost always show a right‐handed helical screw sense because of the stereogenic α‐carbon center of α‐amino acids. M. Tanaka et al. now demonstrate on page 5360 ff. how the left‐handedness of a α‐helical peptide is controlled by the side‐chain stereogenic centers.