Computational design of a self-assembling β-peptide oligomer.

The first computationally designed self-assembling oligomer consisting of exclusively β-amino acids (βAAs) is presented. The packing of a β-314 helix into coiled-coils of varying stoichiometries as a function of amino acid sequence is examined. β-Peptides with hVal repeating every third residue in the sequence appeared to have a strong propensity to pack into hexameric bundles. The designed sequence was synthesized and characterized with CD spectroscopy, NMR, and analytical ultracentrifugation, suggesting that the peptide adopts a well-folded hexameric structure.