Helical sulfono-gamma-AApeptides with predictable functions in protein recognition

Sulfono-gamma-AApeptides are a subset of possible sequence-specific foldamers that might be considered for the design of biomimetic drug molecular structures. Although they have been studied for a relatively short period of time, a number of structures and functions have been designed or discovered within this class of unnatural peptides. Examples of utilizing these sulfono-gamma-AApeptides have demonstrated the potential that sulfono-gamma-AApeptides can offer, however, to date, their application in biomedical sciences yet remains unexplored. This review mainly summarizes the helical folding conformations of sulfono-gamma-AApeptides and their biological application as helical mimetics in medicinally relevant protein-protein interactions (PPIs) and assesses their potential for the mimicry of other alpha-helices for protein recognition in the future.