Secondary Structure Formation in Hybrid Synthetic/Peptide Polymers: Insights from Molecular Dynamics Simulations

Proteins and peptides exhibit an immense variety of structures, which are generally classified according to simple structural motifs (mainly α helices and β sheets). Considerable efforts have been invested in understanding the relationship between chemical structure (primary structure) of peptides and their spatial motifs (secondary structure). However, little is known about the possibility to interfere intentionally in these structural driving forces, for example, by inserting (short) artificial polymer chains in the peptide backbone. Structure formation on such hybrid synthetic/biochemical polymers is still an emerging field of research. Here, molecular dynamics simulations are used to illustrate the influence of inserted polyethylene segments on the secondary structure of several peptide homopolymers. A loss of structure of ≈50% when the peptide chain length drops to ten amino acids and a practically complete absence for even shorter peptide segments.