Histidine, the less interactive cousin of arginine

Electrostatic interactions are one of the main factors influencing biomolecular conformation. The formation of noncovalent complexes by electrostatic interactions is governed by certain amino acid residues and post-translational modifications. It has been demonstrated that adjacent arginine forms noncovalent complex with phosphate; however, histidine noncovalent complexes have rarely been investigated. In the present work, we compare the interaction between basic epitopes (NLRRITRVN, SHHGLHSTPD) and diverse acidic and aromatic-rich peptides using both MALDI and ESI Mass spectrometry. We show that adjacent histidines can also form stable noncovalent bonds and that those bonds are probably formed by a salt bridge between the phosphate or the acid residues and the histidines. However, noncovalent complexes with the arginine epitopes form more readily and are stronger than those with histidine-containing epitopes.