title: Raman spectroscopic fingerprints of scytonemin-imine: density functional theory calculations of a novel potential biomarker.
abstract: Scytonemin-imine, a novel derivative of scytonemin, has been isolated and identified very recently and proposed to serve as a photoprotective biomarker for certain bacteria growing under intense photon flux density. This study predicts theoretically the Raman spectrum of scytonemin-imine by density functional theory calculations and provides comparison of major bands to those of scytonemin, the parent compound for which both the experimentally characterized and theoretically predicted spectra exist in the literature. It is proposed to be an addendum to the collection of our previous work on scytonamin and its derivatives to facilitate recognition of the diagnostic Raman spectral signatures for scytonemin-imine.
authors.affiliation: Department of Chemistry, Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey varnali@boun.edu.tr.
authors.forename: Tereza
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Varnali
authors.affiliation: Centre for Astrobiology and Extremophiles Research, School of Life Sciences, University of Bradford, Bradford BD7 1DP, UK Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Leicester, Leicester LE1 7RH, UK.
authors.forename: Howell G M
authors.initials: HG
authors.lastname: Edwards
keywords: Raman spectroscopy; biomolecular life signatures; experimental spectral databases; extreme environments; scytonemin-imine; theoretical spectral prediction