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RESEARCH PRODUCT

1H-nmr studies of polyoxyethylene-bound homo-oligo-L-methionines

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The use of 1H-nmr spectroscopy is demonstrated to be a useful analytical method to characterize the structure of synthetic peptides attached to soluble, macromolecular polyoxyethylene (POE) supports in the liquid-phase method (LPM) of peptide synthesis. We report an extensive 360-MHz 1H-nmr study of POE-bound homo-oligo-L-methionine peptides. A combination of high field and selective saturation or Redfield pulse methods allows resolution of individual backbone NH and α-CH resonances of dilute peptides in the presence of strong resonances from macromolecular POE and/or protonated solvents. The nmr spectra for the POE-bound peptides in CDCl3 are qualitatively similar to those of the low-molecular-weight Boc-L-Metn-OMe peptide esters. This corroborates other observations that POE has little effect on peptide stucture. The backbone α-CH region of peptides is overlapped by signals from the terminal oxyethylene group of POE, but the peptide side-chain and low-field backbone NH resonances are well resolved. In trifluoroethanol the Boc-(L-Met)n-NH-POE heptamer and octamer adopt the right-handed α-helical structure, and the present nmr studies provide evidence for two strong intramolecular hydrogen bonds to stabilize the helices. In water, the N-deblocked derivatives, (L-Met)n-NH-POE oligomers adopt β-sheet structure and manifest well-resolved nonequivalent NH resonances with 6–7 Hz 3JNH-CH coupling constants.