Location and dynamics of tryptophan in transmembrane α-helix peptides:: a fluorescence and circular dichroism study

Amphiphilic and hydrophobic peptides play a key role in many biological processes. We have developed a reference system for evaluating the insertion of such peptides bearing Trp fluorescent reporter groups into membrane mimetic systems. This system involves a set of six 25-amino acid synthetic peptides that are models of transmembrane alpha-helices. They are Lys-flanked polyLeu sequences, each containing a single Trp residue at a different position (Pi, with i = 3, 5, 7, 9, 11 and 13). These peptides were inserted into micelles of a non-ionic detergent, dodecylmaltoside (DM). We analyzed this system by use of circular dichroism and steady-state and time-resolved fluorescence in combination with Trp quenching with two brominated DM analogs. We found significant variations in the Trp emission maximum according to its position in each peptide (from 327 to 313 nm). This is consistent with the radial insertion of the peptides within DM micelles. We observed characteristic patterns of fluorescence quenching of these peptides in mixed micelles of DM, with either 7,8-dibromododecylmaltoside (BrDM) or 10,11-dibromoundecanoylmaltoside (BrUM), that reflect differences in the accessibility of the Trp residue to the bromine atoms located on the detergent acyl chain. In the isotropic reference solvent, methanol, the alpha-helix content was high and identical (similar to76%) for all peptides. In DM micelles, the alpha-helix content for P9 to P13 was similar to that in methanol, but slightly lower for P3 to P7. The fluorescence intensity decays were heterogeneous and depended upon the position of the Trp. The Trp dynamics of each peptide are described by sub-nanosecond and nanosecond rotational motions that were significantly lower than those observed in methanol. These results, which precisely describe structural, dynamic and microenvironment parameters of peptide Trp in micelles according to its depth, should be useful for describing the interactions of peptides of biological interest with micelles.