Sritana C. Yasui

Biopolymer Conformational Studies With Vibrational Circular Dichroism

Vibrational Circular Dichroism (VCD) has proven to be useful for detecting conformational change and for characterizing secondary structures in polypeptides, proteins and nucleic acids. Recent progress in these areas is reviewed with an emphasis on the contribution of VCD studies to furthering the understanding of conformational aspects of these problems.

Vibrational circular dichroism of polypeptides and proteins

Vibrational circular dichroism spectra of poly-L-tyrosine, poly-L-phenylalanine, myoglobin andβ-lactoglobulin were measured in solution for the amide I region. These measurements are shown to be consistent with previous determinations of the secondary structures of these species.

Techniques And Application Of FTIR Vibrational Circular Dichroism

Vibrational Circular Dichroism (VCD) has proven to be useful for detecting conformational change and for characterizing secondary structures for a variety of biopolymers. Use of FTIR-based VCD for such problems has been made possible with recent improvements in optical design and S/N. FTIR-VCD and dispersive VCD each have strengths that are optimal for specific problems. A comparison of techniques is presented in this lecture, and selected examples of VCD applications to polypeptides and proteins are given.