Abstract: Due to the difficulties in experimentally differentiating between the a-and 3 10- helical conformations in solution, isolated helical peptides have been assumed to be in the a- helical conformation. However, recent electron spin resonance (ESR) studies have suggested that such peptides, in particular short alanine-based peptides, are 310-helical (Miick, SM; et al. Nature 1992, 359, 653-5). This result prompted us to further investigate ...