Conformational analyses by 1H NMR and computer simulations of cyclic hexapeptides related to somatostatin containing acidic and basic peptoid residues.

We report the conformational analysis by 1H NMR in DMSO and computer simulations involving distance geometry and molecular dynamics simulations at 300K of peptoid analogs of the cyclic hexapeptide c-Phe11-Pro6-Phe7-D-Trp8-Lys9-Thr10]. The analogs c-Phe11-Nasp6-Phe7-D-Trp8-Lys9-Thr10](1), c-Phe11-Ndab6Phe7-D-Trp8-Lys9-Thr10] (2) and c-Phen11-Nlys6-Phe7-D-Trp8-Lys9-Thr10](3) where Nasp denotes N-(2-carboxyethyl) glycine, Ndab N-(2-aminoethyl) glycine and Nlys N-(4-aminobutyl) glycine are subject to conformational studies. The results of free and restrained molecular dynamics simulations at 300K are reported and give insight into the conformational behaviour of these analogs. The compounds show two sets of nuclear magnetic resonance signals corresponding to the cis and trans orientations of the peptide bond between residues 11 and 6. The backbone conformation of the cis isomers that we believe are the bioactive isomers of the three compounds are very similar to each other while there are larger variations amongst the trans isomers. The binding data to the isolated receptors show that the introduction of the Nlys residue in analog 3 leads to an enhancement of binding potency to the hsst5 receptor compared with analog 2 while maintaining identical binding potency to the hsst2 receptor. The Nasp6 analog 1 binds weakly to the hsst2 and is essentially inactive towards the other receptors. Comparison of the conformations and binding activities of these three analogs indicates that the Nlys residue extends sufficiently far to allow binding to a negatively charged binding domain on the hsst5 receptor. According to this model, the Ndab analog 2 cannot extend far enough to allow for binding to the receptor pocket. The loss of activity observed for the Nasp6 compound 1 indicates that the presence of a negatively charged residue in position 6 is unfavorable for binding to the hsst receptors.