engleski

Polarized spectroscopy methods in the determination of interactions of small molecules with nucleic acids - tutorial

Structural characterization of non-covalent complexes between nucleic acids and small molecules (ligands) is of a paramount significance in bioorganic research. Highly informative methods about nucleic acid/ligand complexes like single crystal X-ray diffraction or NMR cannot be performed under biologically relevant conditions and are extensively time- consuming. Therefore, in a search for faster methods which can be applied at least at in conditions similar to naturally occurring ones, a set of polarized spectroscopy methods has shown in years highly promising results. Electronic circular dichroism (ECD) is the most commonly used in the characterization of the helical structure of DNA and RNA and their complexes with ligands. Less common, but complementary to ECD, is flow oriented linear dichroism (LD). Other methods such as vibrational CD (VCD) and emission-based methods (FDCD, CPL), can also be used on suitable samples. Despite the popularity of polarized spectroscopies in biophysics, aside several much-focused reviews on the application of these methods on DNA/RNA research, there is no systematic tutorial covering all mentioned methods as a tool for the characterization of adducts between nucleic acids and small ligands. This tutorial aims to help researchers entering the research field to organize experiments accurately and interpret the obtained data reliably.

nucleic acids recognition ; non-covalent interactions ; intercalation ; groove binding ; circular dichroism ; linear dichroism ; vibrational circular dichroism ; emission-based dichroism

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