Identifying Protein β‐Turns with Vibrational Raman Optical Activity

β‐turns belong to the most important secondary structure elements in proteins. On the basis of density functional calculations, vibrational Raman optical activity signatures of different types of β‐turns are established and compared as well as related to other signatures proposed in the literature earlier. Our findings indicate that there are much more characteristic ROA signals of β‐turns than have been hitherto suggested. These suggested signatures are, however, found to be valid for the most important type of β‐turns. Moreover, we compare the influence of different amino acid side chains on these signatures and investigate the discrimination of β‐turns from other secondary structure elements, namely α‐ and 3₁₀‐helices.