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Publication Abstract from PubMed

Truncation and mutation of a poorly folded 39-residue peptide has produced 20-residue constructs that are >95% folded in water at physiological pH. These constructs optimize a novel fold, designated as the 'Trp-cage' motif, and are significantly more stable than any other miniprotein reported to date. Folding is cooperative and hydrophobically driven by the encapsulation of a Trp side chain in a sheath of Pro rings. As the smallest protein-like construct, Trp-cage miniproteins should provide a testing ground for both experimental studies and computational simulations of protein folding and unfolding pathways. Pro Trp interactions may be a particularly effective strategy for the a priori design of self-folding peptides.

Designing a 20-residue protein.,Neidigh JW, Fesinmeyer RM, Andersen NH Nat Struct Biol. 2002 Jun;9(6):425-30. PMID:11979279^[1]

From MEDLINE®/PubMed®, a database of the U.S. National Library of Medicine.