Formation of the local secondary structure of proteins: local sequence or environment

An analysis of the occurrence of tetrapeptides in 35 globular proteins for alpha-helix, beta-structure and coil was performed. We concluded that: the conformation of a short polypeptide segment cannot be determined on the basis of the knowledge of the amino acid sequence only; local structures of a protein are formed as the result of interactions within the whole structural domain of the protein as well as interactions with the environment.