Cyclic peptoids

Foldamers are an intriguing family of biomimetic oligomers that exhibit a propensity to adopt stable secondary structures. N-Substituted glycine oligomers, or peptoids, are a prototypical example of these foldamer systems and are known to form a helix resembling that of polyproline type I. Ongoing studies seek to improve the stability of peptoid folding and to discover new secondary structure motifs. Here, we report that peptoids undergo highly efficient head-to-tail macrocyclization reactions. A diverse array of peptoid sequences from pentamers to 20mers were converted to macrocyclic products within 5 min at room temperature. The introduction of the covalent constraint enhances conformational ordering, allowing for the crystallization of a cyclic peptoid hexamer and octamer. We present the first X-ray crystallographic structures of peptoid hetero-oligomers, revealing that peptoid macrocycles can form a reverse-turn conformation.