https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-022-00679-3
Review
Recent advances in the development of ultrafast electronic circular dichroism for probing the conformational dynamics of biomolecules in solution
Laboratoire d’Optique et Biosciences, CNRS, INSERM, Ecole Polytechnique, Institut Polytechnique de Paris, 91128, Palaiseau, France
a
pascale.changenet-barret@polytechnique.edu
Received:
12
June
2022
Accepted:
20
September
2022
Published online:
4
October
2022
Conformational dynamics of biomolecules, which can span very large time scales ranging from seconds down to femtoseconds, play a key role in their function. In this regard, the combination of the high temporal resolution of ultrafast pump–probe spectroscopy and the structural sensitivity of electronic circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy provides an extremely promising tool to follow these dynamics with a "virtually" unlimited temporal resolution. However, although CD spectroscopy is a widely used tool in structural biology to determine the secondary structure of biomolecules in solution, transposition of these measurements to the time domain (TRCD), on the sub-picosecond time scale, remains very challenging due to their weak signals prone to pump-induced polarization artifacts. Recent advances in laser technologies and non-linear optics, however, offer new perspectives for the development of femtosecond TRCD set-ups. In this review, we present recent developments in ultrafast TRCD spectroscopy. We discuss the advantages and drawbacks of the few existing functional experimental set-ups for their use to access the conformational dynamics of biomolecules at ultrashort time scales.
The original online version of this article was revised due to some minor errors in the equations 2, 15, 16 and 17.
Ultrafast Phenomena from attosecond to picosecond timescales: theory and experiments. Guest editors: Franck Lépine, Lionel Poisson.
A correction to this article is available online at https://doi.org/10.1140/epjs/s11734-023-00767-y.
Copyright comment corrected publication 2023
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© The Author(s), under exclusive licence to EDP Sciences, Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature 2022. corrected publication 2023. Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.
