The biological unit of 5eon is a crystallographic structure of 6 alpha helices assembled into a fiber with a hydrophobic core[1]. The individual peptides are synthetic and were designed to assemble in this manner, with a hydrophotic core rich in phenylalanine. The crystal structure has a resolution of 1.7 Å (very good), and an Rfree of 0.22, which is average for this resolution, indicating that the model is reliable.
The .
Sequence
The peptide sequence is constructed from 4 copies of heptad
E L/F K A I A Q/K/W
The amino-terminal Glu is acetylated, removing its positive charge. The C-terminal Lys is amidated, removing its negative charge. Here is the sequence of one complete peptide (29 amino acids) showing the heptad repeats.
ELKAIAQ EFKAIAK EFKAIAW EFKAIAQ K
