Influence of the conformation of a macromolecule on the generation of T‐cell proliferative response A study with model polypeptides

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Abstract
To study the influence of the conformation of polypeptidic macromolecules on the generation of T-cell epitopes, sequential polypeptides with an octamer repeat unit were designed and synthesized. They adopt mainly unordered and α-helical conformations. Among these polypeptides, those containing proline are fully or partly unordered, and are more effective at inducing T-cell proliferation than a proline-free very stable α-helical polypeptide. This extremely stable α-helical conformation, probably stabilized by aggregation, would enhance its stability against proteolytic processing.