Influence of local interactions on protein structure. I. Conformational energy studies of N‐acetyl‐N′‐methylamides of pro‐X and X‐pro dipeptides

Abstract

Conformational energy calculations using an Empirical Conformational Energy Program for Peptides (ECEPP) were carried out on the N‐acetyl‐N′‐methylamides of Pro‐X, where X = Ala, Asn, Asp, Gly, Leu, Phe, Ser, and Val, and of X‐Pro, where X = Ala, Asn, Gly, and Pro. The conformational energy was minimized from starting conformations which included all combinations of low‐energy single‐residue minima and several standard bend structures. It was found that almost all resulting minima are combinations of low‐energy single‐residue minima, suggesting that intra residue interactions predominate in determining conformation. The calculations also indicate, however, that inter residue interactions can be important. In addition, librational entropy was found to influence the relative stabilities of some minima. Because of the existence of 10–100 low‐energy minima for each dipeptide, the normalized statistical weight of an individual minimum rarely exceeds 0.3, suggesting that these dipeptides have considerable conformational flexibility and exist as statistical ensembles of low‐energy structures. The propensity of each dipeptide to form bend conformations was calculated, and the results were compared with available experimental data. It was found that bends are favored in Pro‐X dipeptides because ϕ Pro is fixed by the pyrrolidine ring in a conformation which is frequently found in bends, but that bends are not favored in X‐Pro dipeptides because interactions between the X residue and the pyrrolidine ring restrict the X residue to conformations which are not usually found in bends.