Can unique protein structures arise from a limited set of amino acids present on the prebiotic Earth? To address this question, we have determined the stability and structure of KIA7, a 20-residue polypeptide containing chiefly Lys, Ile, and Ala. NMR methods reveal that KIA7 tetramerizes and folds on the millisecond time scale to adopt a four-helix X-bundle structure with a tightly and specifically packed core. Denaturation studies and hydrogen exchange measurements of KIA7 and several variants demonstrate that ridges-into-grooves packing of Ala and Ile side chains and the packing of a C-terminal aromatic group into the hydrophobic core are sufficient to give rise to a rather stable, well folded protein structure, with no favorable electrostatic interactions or tertiary or quaternary hydrogen bonds. Both modern proteins and RNAs can adopt specific structures, but RNAs do so with a limited ''alphabet'' of residues and types of stabilizing interactions. The results reported here show that specific, well folded protein structures can also arise from a highly reduced set of stabilizing interactions and amino acids that are thought to have been present on the prebiotic Earth.four-helix bundle ͉ NMR spectroscopy ͉ protein stability ͉ chemical evolution ͉ protein folding I n the prebiotic Earth, hydrophobic and charged amino acids were thought to have been rather common, whereas polar amino acids were rare (1, 2). Could such a limited set of amino acids have given rise to unique well folded proteins? To gain insight into this question, we have studied the conformational stability and structure of KIA7, a 20-residue polypeptide containing chiefly Lys, Ile, and Ala, plus a -Gly-Gly-Tyr extension for concentration determination, which self-associates to form a well packed, four-helix bundle protein.KIA7 was previously identified from a combinatorial peptide library as having a highly helical structure (as gauged by CD), a well packed hydrophobic core (1-anilino-8-naphthalene sulfonate fluorescence), and a specific tetrameric quaternary structure (analytical ultracentrifugation) (3, 4). The positively charged lysine side chains prevent the formation of higherordered oligomers. Because no tertiary hydrogen bonds, higherorder oligomerization or crystal packing interactions, or favorable electrostatic interactions are present in KIA7, this study constitutes a test of whether or not a specific, unique structure can arise from a highly limited set of stabilizing interactions, namely, the hydrophobic effect and van der Waals interactions.In addition to KIA7, two other members of the KIA series of peptides, KIA5 and KIA10, were studied (Table 1). These peptides are variants of the KIA7 sequence and possess lesser degrees of ordered structure (3). A stabilized KIA7 variant with a disulfide cross-link, CG 3 KIA7, was also examined, and additional peptides truncating the -Gly-Gly-Tyr C-terminal extension, KIA7⌬, or carrying Tyr to Phe, KIA7F, or Tyr to Ile, KIA7I, substitutions were studied to probe the possible stabilizing or struc...