The effect of the neglect of electronic polarization in peptide folding simulations

The effect of the neglect of electronic polarization, on the relative stability of different conformations of a model peptide in a nonpolar environment, is investigated. The result reveals that the stability of confirmations which have an enhanced electric field, such as is generated by the formation of a helix dipole could significantly underestimated by the neglect of the effects of electronic polarization in weakly or nonpolar solvents.