Non-aromatic fluorescence from single α-helical peptides González González, Carmen López Blanco, Roi González Vera, Juan Antonio Melle Franco, Manuel Orte Gutiérrez, Ángel Vazquez, M. Eugenio We describe a systematic analysis of non-aromatic fluorescence (NAF)-emitting peptides in solution and show that short peptides derived from zwitterionic single α helices (SAHs), formed exclusively by nonaromatic lysine and glutamic acid residues, are UV active and luminescent at near-UV wavelengths in solution (λexc = 320 nm; λem ≈ 420 nm). We also show that their emission depends on the α-helical folding, which favors intramolecular through-space interactions between the Lys/Glu side chains, and that conservative mutations, such as the replacement of Lys by Orn or Arg, strongly influence the NAF emission 2025-07-23T10:14:35Z 2025-07-23T10:14:35Z 2025-06-18 journal article González-González, C., Lopez-Blanco, R., González-Vera, J. A., D’Ingiullo, S., Bouzada, D., Melle-Franco, M., Orte, A., & Vázquez, M. E. (2025). Non-aromatic fluorescence from single α-helical peptides. Cell Reports. Physical Science, 6(6), 102631. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xcrp.2025.102631 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/105588 10.1016/j.xcrp.2025.102631 eng info:eu-repo/grantAgreement/H2020/964593 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ open access Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 Internacional Elsevier