An important goal of protein design is to understand
the forces that stabilize a particular fold in preference
to alternative folds. Here, we describe an extension of
earlier studies in which we successfully designed a stable,
native-like helical protein that is 50% identical in sequence
to a predominantly β-sheet protein, the B1 domain of
Streptococcal IgG-binding protein G. We report
the characteristics of a series of variants of our original
design that have even higher sequence identity to the B1
domain. Their properties illustrate the extent to which
protein stability and conformation can be modulated through
careful manipulation of key amino acid residues. Our results
have implications for understanding conformational change
phenomena of central biological importance and in probing
the malleability of the sequence/structure relationship.