Biochemistry 4th Edition by Christopher Mathews,Kensal van Holde, Dean Appling, Spencer Anthony Cahill

Exercise 2

Certain polypeptide sequences that show a pronounced tendency to dimerize in an antiparallel coiled-coil structure exhibit an exact repetition of leucine every 7 residues. If you also know that the helix is distorted somewhat from its usual 3.6 residues/turn in coiled coils, propose a mechanism for the dimerization. What does this suggest that the residue/turn value might be in a coiled coil