Examining the secondary structures of unnatural peptides and carbohydrate-based compounds utilizing circular dichroism

Abstract

This review focuses on the use of CD in elucidating structure in oligo- and polysaccharides, unnatural β- and γ-peptides, and both natural and unnatural oligo- and polymers composed of N-acetyl neuraminic acid. CD in conjunction with other techniques such as NMR and molecular modeling has been successfully used to gain a clearer picture of the hydrogen-bonding interactions, and conformational information of molecules that are not accessible by X-ray crystallography. The use of the peak-to-trough analysis within each class of oligomers has been an integral part of the analysis, and has provided interesting insights into the conformational changes that occur within oligomers with varied chain lengths. Continued studies in this relatively new area of research will add to the knowledge base that correlates circular dichroism data with other spectroscopic techniques ultimately facilitating secondary structure characterization. Copyright (C) 2000 Elsevier Science Ltd.