Ultrafast conformational changes in biomolecules studied by time-resolved circular dichroism

International audienceCircular dichroism (CD) is known to be a very sensitive probe of molecular conformation, and it is in particular widely used in biochemistry. Measuring the CD as a function of time is therefore very appealing to access information on the dynamics of conformational changes in molecules or biomolecules. We have implemented such a time-resolved experiments in two complementary configurations: a sub-picosecond pump-probe one and a microsecond detection of CD coupled to a T-jump experiment. We present two experiments based on these techniques: the ultrafast motion of the carbonyl group in the chromophore of the Photoactive Yellow Protein after photoexcitation and the dynamics of thermal denaturation in model peptides. © (2015) COPYRIGHT Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only