Minimization of polypeptide energy, vi. Systematic searches for low-energy conformations of deca-L-alanine and the octapeptide loop of ribonuclease.

A succession of apparent local energy minima, in which the energies decrease successively, have been located for deca-L-alanine and the octapeptide loop of ribonuclease. The lowest energy minima were approximately 40 kcal/mole lower than the highest ones. The results suggest that the computational methods used here might be of considerable use in searching for the global energy minimum of larger polypeptides.