Interactions of alkyltin salts with biological dithiols: Dealkylation and induction of a regular beta-turn structure in peptides

The high-resolution NMR study and DFT calculation of the interaction between alkyltin compounds and a biological molecule are reported. It was seen that 9-residue peptide containing a CXC motif extracted from the neuronal peptide stannin (SNN) has no preferred structure, but upon the addition of trimethyltin (TMT), dealkylates TMT to dimethyltin (DMT), and adopts a unique stable type-I beta-turn conformation.