No abstract

Herein, we report an efficient route for the asymmetric synthesis of β(2)-aminoxy acids as well as experimental and theoretical studies of conformations of peptides composed of β(2)-aminoxy acids. The nine-membered-ring intramolecular hydrogen bonds, namely, β N-O turns, are generated between adjacent residues in those peptides, in accordance with our computational results. The presence of two consecutive homochiral β N-O turns leads to the formation of β N-O helical structures in solution, although both helical (composed of two β N-O turns of the same handedness) and reverse-turn (composed of two β N-O turns with opposite handedness) structures are of similar stability, as suggested by theoretical studies. Nevertheless, two slightly different conformations, with the same handedness, of β(2)-aminoxy monomers have been observed in the solid state and in solution according to our X-ray and 2D NOESY studies.

Disulfide-bond formation between the side chains of cysteine-cysteine pairs is often critical to the folding behavior, stability, and functionality of proteins. In this paper, we report that sulfur atoms can be introduced into the amide groups of aminoxy peptides to form a novel type of disulfide bridge, which creates a connecting loop in the peptide backbone.