Peptide-Modulated pH Rhythms

Many drugs adjust and/or control the spatiotemporal dynamics of periodic processes such as heartbeat, neuronal signaling and metabolism, often by interacting with proteins or oligopeptides. Here we use a quasi-biocompatible, non-equilibrium pH oscillatory system as a biomimetic biological clock to study the effect of pH-responsive peptides on rhythm dynamics. The added peptides generate feedback that can lengthen or shorten the oscillatory period during which the peptides alternate between random coil and coiled-coil conformations. This modulation of a chemical clock supports the notion that short peptide reagents may have utility as drugs to regulate human body clocks.