  A microscopic spin model is proposed for the phenomenological Zimm-Bragg
model for the helix-coil transition in biopolymers. This model is shown to
provide the same thermophysical properties of the original Zimm-Bragg model and
it allows a very convenient framework to compute statistical quantities.
Physical origins of this spin model are made transparent by an exact mapping
into a one-dimensional Ising model with an external field. However, the
dependence on temperature of the reduced external field turns out to differ
from the standard one-dimensional Ising model and hence it gives rise to
different thermophysical properties, despite the exact mapping connecting them.
We discuss how this point has been frequently overlooked in the recent
literature.
