https://doi.org/10.1051/epjconf/20100503003
Time-resolved circular dichroism: Application to the study of conformal changes in biomolecules
Laboratoire d'Optique et Biosciences, Ecole Polytechnique, CNRS, INSERM,
91128 Palaiseau cedex
Circular dichroism (CD) is known to be a very sensitive probe of the conformation of molecules and biomolecules. It is therefore tempting to implement CD in a pump-probe experiment in order to measure ultrarapid conformational changes which occur in photochemical processes. We present two technical developments of such time-resolved CD experiments. The first one relies on the modulation of the probe polarization from left to right circular whereas the second one measures the pump-induced ellipticity of the probe with a Babinet-Soleil compensator. Some applications are described and extension of these techniques towards the study of elementary protein folding processes is discussed.
© Owned by the authors, published by EDP Sciences, 2010
