Kinetics of Helix-Coil Transition in All Sizes of Polypeptides

The relaxation behavior of the helix-coil transition has been investigated for all sizes of polypeptides. Unlike previously reported results, regardless of the size of polypeptides, the first-order kinetics plays a principal role in the relaxation process when a helical state is relaxed to a half-coiled state [i.e. s(f) is congruent to 1, where s(f) is the helix stability parameter at the final state]. On the other hand, when a helical state is relaxed to a coiled state [i.e., s(f) is less than 1], the zeroth-order kinetics plays a major role. In addition, the range of the validity of a kinetic version of the zipper model has been investigated. We have found that when a helical state is relaxed to a state where s(f) is less than or equal to 1, the zipper model is valid for polypeptides with chain length N satisfying the relation N is less than 1/(sigmagammaC)1/2 where sigma is the cooperativity parameter and gammaC is the coil nucleation rate parameter.