Investigating the Mimetic Potential of β-Turn Mimetics

Abstract

The β-turn is a common structural feature in peptides and proteins, consisting of four consecutive amino acids with a distance of less than 7A between the Cα atoms of the first and fourth amino acid (dα).1 Since β-turns are often considered to be important for molecular recognition, they are interesting templates to use in the design and synthesis of peptidomimetics. It is important to know precisely which β-turn conformation(s) the peptidomimetic corresponds to. A classification scheme that is not dependent on the peptide backbone is necessary to classify both peptides and peptidomimetics. We analysed β-turn conformations geometrically and classified them according to the relationships between the directions of the characteristic bonds 1, 2, 3 and 4 (see Figure la).