Polyalanine gas phase acidities determination and conformational space analysis by genetic algorithm assessment

The genetic algorithm, based on the Multi-Niche Crowding (MNC) method, coupled with the semi-empirical AM1 method is used to analyze the potential energy surface of some polypeptides containing cysteine. Calculating the formation energies of these systems in both neutral and deprotonated states, we deducted their enthalpy of deprotonation (ΔHacid) and we identified the types of rearrangement of these systems when isolated. Deprotonation occurs at the level of the alone acid site characterizing these peptides namely the thiol. The values obtained for the deprotonation enthalpies of polypeptides AlaCysNH2, Ala2CysNH2, Ala3CysNH2, Ala4CysNH2, CysAlaNH2 and CysAla2NH2 are in the order of 331.3 kcal/mol, 322.9 kcal/mol, 313.8 kcal/mol, 312.9 kcal/mol, 325.1 kcal/mol and 317.3 kcal/mol, respectively. The location of global and local minima of these polypeptides shows that they are rearranged in two forms of secondary structures namely helical and globular forms. The obtained results are in good agreement with the experimental ones, on the one hand, and with those from other methods in the theoretical calculation, on the other hand. Therefore, the N-cysteine is more acidic than their homologous C-Cysteine and for this series of plolyalanines, the acidity in the gas phase increased with the peptide chain length.