title: LD spectroscopy of natural and synthetic biomaterials.
abstract: The structural characterization of biomaterials is challenging because they are usually too large for NMR or high resolution mass spectrometry and not well-enough structured for X-ray crystallography. Structural characterization and kinetic analysis for such systems thus has to proceed by collecting complementary data from a wide range of different techniques. This tutorial review describes how linear dichroism, a polarized absorbance spectroscopy technique applied to oriented molecular systems, can be used to provide useful data on biomaterials. In particular LD can provide information about relative orientations of sub-units of biomaterials and orientations of the whole biomaterial with respect to an orientation axis. An outline of linear dichroism and a summary of the artifacts to be avoided are followed by a description of how Couette flow linear dichroism has been used for a range of biomaterial systems including: DNA; DNA:ligand systems; cytoskeletal fibrous proteins; synthetic protein fibres; membrane proteins in liposomes; bacteriophage; carbon nanotubes; and peptidoglycan systems.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, University of Warwick, Coventry, CV4 7AL, UK.
authors.forename: Matthew R
authors.initials: MR
authors.lastname: Hicks
authors.forename: Jarosav
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Kowałski
authors.forename: Alison
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rodger
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001672:Biocompatible Materials / Q000737:chemistry*; D002942:Circular Dichroism; D006801:Humans; D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon; D011506:Proteins / Q000737:chemistry* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D001672:Biocompatible Materials; D037742:Nanotubes, Carbon; D011506:Proteins