Influence of temperature on the helix sense of several polyamino acids

✍ Scribed by N. Lotan; F. A. Momany; J. F. Yan; G. Vanderkooi; H. A. Scheraga

• Publisher: Wiley (John Wiley & Sons)
• Year: 1969
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 435 KB
• Volume: 8
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0006-3525
• DOI: 10.1002/bip.1969.360080103

✦ Synopsis

An increase in temperatnre causes an increase in the amplitudes of intramolecrilar and intermolecular motions and mainfests itself a s an increase in the effective radii of the various atoms, especially hydrogen atoms. If one uses a Lennard-Jones 6-12 potential function to account for nonborided interactions, this increase in the radius of the hydrogen atom is equivalent to a modification of the coefficient of the repulsive part, of the Lennard-Jones potential. Accordingly, this effect of increasing temperature on the helix sense of several polyamino acids is computed by allowing the effective radiiis of the hydrogen atom to increase. I t is found that the preferred sense of several polyamino acid helices changes from right-to left-handed as the temperature is increased. This accounts for recent experimental observations of changes in helix seme with t emperatnre.