Consequences of Isostructural Main‐Chain Modifications for the Design of Antimicrobial Foldamers: Helical Mimics of Host‐Defense Peptides Based on a Heterogeneous Amide/Urea Backbone

Abstract

Fraternal twins: Oligoureas and γ-peptides are isosteric, quasi-isostructural helical foldamers endowed with distinct biomolecular recognition properties. Combination of the two backbones to generate urea/amide hybrids (see picture) was found to give more potent yet less cytotoxic antimicrobial helical foldamers.