An explanation for the rare occurrence of cis peptide units in proteins and polypeptides

Ramachandran, GN and Mitra, Alok K (1976) An explanation for the rare occurrence of cis peptide units in proteins and polypeptides. In: Journal of Molecular Biology, 107 (1). pp. 85-92.

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Abstract

The rarity of occurrence of cis peptide units is only partially explained by the higher intrinsic energy of the cis over the trans form, which provides a probability of 0·01 for cis peptide units to occur. An additional factor is the conformational restriction imposed by the occurrence of a cis peptide unit in a chain of trans units. Taking a section of three peptide units having the sequences trans-trans-trans (ttt) and trans-cis-trans (tct), conformational energy calculations indicate that the latter can occur only to an extent of 0·1%, unless there occurs the sequence X-Pro, in which case it is of the order of 30%. This explains the extreme rarity of cis peptide units, in general; however, it follows that even with non-prolyl residues, cis peptide units are not forbidden, but can occur in some rare examples and should be looked for.

Item Type:	Journal Article
Publication:	Journal of Molecular Biology
Publisher:	Elsevier Science
Additional Information:	Copyright of this article belongs to Elsevier Science.
Department/Centre:	Division of Biological Sciences > Molecular Biophysics Unit
Date Deposited:	11 Dec 2009 06:56
Last Modified:	19 Sep 2010 05:48
URI:	http://eprints.iisc.ac.in/id/eprint/24017

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