What amino acids are preferred in alpha-helices?

[ahillar at your-servername.Lan1.UManitoba.CA]

In article <3aol3j$qkg at netnews.upenn.edu> alavizad at mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Seyed A Alavizadeh) writes:
>From: alavizad at mail2.sas.upenn.edu (Seyed A Alavizadeh)
>Subject: What amino acids are preferred in alpha-helices?
>Date: 20 Nov 1994 23:11:47 GMT

>I am curious to know if there are particular amino acids that are 
>preferred for the formation of alpha-helices. Can someone tell me which 
>ones these are?

>thanks.

>--
>____________________________________________________________________
>S. Ali Alavizadeh                              Department of Biology
>alavizad at mail.sas.upenn.edu               University of Pennsylvania
>              ATAACAAGCATCAACACCCACGAAGGAGAGAATGAATCTTGA

You might check out the IRL practical approach series title "Protein 
Engineering"  edited by Rees, Sternberg, and Wetzel. I remember a chapter in 
it co-authored by Chris Sandler, if I'm not mistaken, that contains amino acid 
preference matrices based on a statistical analysis of dozens of protein 
sequences. In fact, the matrices give some idea of what amino acid is favoured 
at each position of small helix.

A. Hillar
ahillar at bldgwall.lan1umanitoba.ca