Monomers in mixtures or alternative lists

Owned by Claire Bellamy (Unlicensed)
Sept 25, 2018
1 min read

Handling monomers in lists

HELM allows users to specify lists of alternative monomers or mixtures in any order. So PEPTIDE1{(A+dA)}$$$$V2.0 and PEPTIDE1{(dA+A)}$$$$V2.0 are exactly the same. However this can get confusing when there are long lists of monomers and also make comparisons between HELM strings more difficult.


Recommendation: Put monomers in alphabetical order when using them in lists.


HELM allows users to add the same monomer more than once in a list. So PEPTIDE1{(A+A+L+L+A+V)}$$$$V2.0 is allowed.

However, there is no point to doing this as the notation assumes that the ratio of the components are unknown if the proportions are not specified: PEPTIDE1{(A+A+L+L+A+V)}$$$$V2.0 is exactly the same as PEPTIDE1{(A+L+V)}$$$$V2.0. and the latter example is much clearer to read.


If you want to specify proportions, you should use PEPTIDE1{(A:3+L:3+V:1)}$$$$V2.0


Recommendation: Don't use the same monomer more than once in a list.