A 32-residue a-helical peptide with a sequence similiar to that of the
GCN4 leucine zipper region is shown to catalyze its own formation by
accelerating the amide bond formation of a 17-residue peptide, preacti
vated as a thiobenzyl ester, and a 15-residue peptide with a N-termina
l cysteine. The self-replication process displays parabolic growth cha
racteristics as revealed by a detailed kinetic analysis. Control react
ions with single-mutant peptides strongly support a mechanism in which
a ternary and/or quaternary complex of the product with both peptide
fragments act(s) as the catalytically active intermediate(s). Furtherm
ore, these experiments reveal a remarkable sequence selectivity, as ev
idenced by the loss of autocatalytic activity as a result of a single
replacement of leucine or valine residues with an alanine at the recog
nition interface.