Role of enthalpy-entropy compensation interactions in determining the conformational propensities of amino acid residues in unfolded peptides.

The driving forces governing the unique and restricted conformational preferences of amino acid residues in the unfolded state are still not well understood. In this study, we experimentally determine the individual thermodynamic components underlying intrinsic conformational propensities of these residues. Thermodynamic analysis of ultraviolet-circular dichroism (UV-CD) and (1)H NMR data for a series of glycine capped amino acid residues (i.e., G-x-G peptides) reveals the existence of a nearly exact enthalpy-entropy compensation for the polyproline II-β strand equilibrium for all investigated residues. The respective ΔHβ, ΔSβ values exhibit a nearly perfect linear relationship with an apparent compensation temperature of 295 ± 2 K. Moreover, we identified iso-equilibrium points for two subsets of residues at 297 and 305 K. Thus, our data suggest that within this temperature regime, which is only slightly below physiological temperatures, the conformational ensembles of amino acid residues in the unfolded state differ solely with respect to their capability to adopt turn-like conformations. Such iso-equilibria are rarely observed, and their existence herein indicates a common physical origin behind conformational preferences, which we are able to assign to side-chain dependent backbone solvation. Conformational effects such as differences between the number of sterically allowed side chain rotamers can contribute to enthalpy and entropy but not to the Gibbs energy associated with conformational preferences. Interestingly, we found that alanine, aspartic acid, and threonine are the only residues which do not share these iso-equilbiria. The enthalpy-entropy compensation discovered as well as the iso-equilbrium and thermodynamics obtained for each amino acid residue provide a new and informative way of identifying the determinants of amino acid propensities in unfolded and disordered states.