A conservative opinion of the structure of proteins is that they are essentially polypeptides formed by amide condensations between alpha amino acids. The Fischer-Hofmeister peptide hypothesis has the support of most chemists concerned with proteins. The great number of possible isomers stemming from the existence of more than 20 different amino acids was recognized early. We shall adopt the view that the order of the amino acids in the polypeptide chains is of primary importance, both for the physical nature of the individual proteins and for their biological properties. At the conclusion of this paper, some other structural principles will be discussed, but the data and experiments which are reported in the body of the paper are concerned with the organic chemistry of silk fibroin from Bombyx mori. This was chosen for study because of the presence in it of large quantities of two amino acids, glycine and alanine, and...
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Levy et al. (1950) studied this question.