Peptides as Conformational Switch: Medium‐Induced Conformational Transitions of Designed Peptides

The synthetic oligopeptide I undergoes a spontaneous, reversible transition from an α‐helix to a β‐sheet structure in mixtures of 45% 2,2,2‐trifluoroethanol and 55% H 2 O. The amphiphilic oligopeptide 1 and two isomers were expressly designed for this investigation. Such peptides, which can exist in several conformations, might find application as “switches” in the de novo design of artificial proteins. equation image