Abstract
Circular dichroism (CD) is the difference in absorption of left and right circularly polarized light, usually by a solution containing the molecules of interest. A non-zero signal for solutions is only measured for chiral molecules such as proteins whose mirror image is not superposable on the original molecule. A CD spectrum provides information about the bonds and structures responsible for the chirality. When a small molecule (or ligand) binds to a protein, it acquires an induced CD (ICD) spectrum through chiral perturbation to its structure or electron rearrangements (transitions). The wavelengths of this ICD are determined by the ligand’s own absorption spectrum, and the intensity of the ICD spectrum is determined by the strength and geometry of its interaction with the protein. Thus, ICD can be used to probe the binding of ligands to proteins. This chapter contains an outline of how to perform protein CD and ICD experiments, together with some of the issues relating to experimental design and implementation. Addition of a quarter wave plate to a CD spectropolarimeter converts it to a linear dichroism (LD) spectrometer. When protein samples are aligned either in flow (as for fibers or membrane proteins in liposomes) or on surfaces the orientations of ligands with respect to the protein backbone or other subunits can be determined.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Nordén B, Rodger A, Dafforn TR (2010) Linear dichroism and circular dichroism: a textbook on polarized spectroscopy. Royal Society of Chemistry, Cambridge
Nakanishi K, Berova N, Woody RW (1994) Circular dichroism: principles and applications. VCH, New York
Rodger A, Nordén B (1997) Circular dichroism and linear dichroism. Oxford University Press, Oxford
http://dichroweb.cryst.bbk.ac.uk; Dichroweb by Lee Whitmore and B.A. Wallace http://oregonstate.edu/dept/biochem/faculty/johnson.html. CDsstr by W. Curtis Johnson
Johnson WC (1999) Analyzing protein circular dichroism spectra for accurate secondary structures. Proteins 35:307–312
Marrington R, Dafforn TR, Halsall DJ, Hicks M, Rodger A (2005) Validation of new microvolume Couette flow linear dichroism cells. Analyst 130:1608–1616
Marrington R, Dafforn TR, Halsall DJ, Rodger A (2004) Micro volume Couette flow sample orientation for absorbance and fluorescence linear dichroism. Biophys J 87:2002–2012
Rodger A, Marrington R, Geeves MA, Hicks M, de Alwis L, Halsall DJ, Dafforn TR (2006) Looking at long molecules in solution: what happens when they are subjected to Couette flow? Phys Chem Chem Phys 8:3131–3171
Hicks MR, Damianoglou A, Rodger A, Dafforn TR (2008) Folding and membrane insertion of the pore-forming peptide gramicidin occur as a concerted process. J Mol Biol 383:358–366
Hicks MR, Kowalski J, Rodger A (2010) LD spectroscopy of natural and synthetic biomaterials. Chem Soc Rev 39:3380–3393
Marrington R, Seymour M, Rodger A (2006) A new method for fibrous protein analysis illustrated by application to tubulin microtubule polymerisation and depolymerisation. Chirality 18:680–690
Marrington R, Small E, Rodger A, Dafforn TR, Addinall S (2004) FtsZ fibre bundling is triggered by a calcium-induced conformational change in bound GTP. J Biol Chem 279:48821–48829
Chen GC, Yang JT (1977) Two-point calibration of circular dichrometer with d-10-camphorsulfonic acid. Anal Lett 10:1195–1207
Takakuwa T, Konno T, Meguro H (1985) A new standard substance for calibration of circular dichroism: ammonium d-10-camphorsulfonate. Anal Sci 1:215–218
Kelly SM, Jess TJ, Price NC (2005) How to study proteins by circular dichroism. Biochim Biophys Acta 1751:119–139
Chmel NP, Scott P, Rodger A (2012) Considerations of noise and measurement reproducibility of CD measurements using Na[CoIII(EDDS)]. Chirality 24:699–705
Hicks MR, Dafforn TR, Damianoglou A, Wormell P, Rodger A, Hoffmann SV (2009) Synchrotron radiation linear dichroism spectroscopy of the antibiotic peptide gramicidin in lipid membranes. Analyst 134:1623–1628
Rodger A (1993) Linear dichroism. Methods Enzymol 226:232–258
Polster J, Lachman H (1989) Spectrometric titrations: analysis of chemical equilibria. VCH Verlagsgesellschaft, Weinheim
Rodger A, Rajendra J, Marrington R, Ardhammar M, Nordén B, Hirst JD, Gilbert ATB, Dafforn TR, Halsall DJ, Woolhead CA, Robinson C, Pinheiro TJ, Kazlauskaite J, Seymour M, Perez N, Hannon MJ (2002) Flow oriented linear dichroism to probe protein orientation in membrane environments. Phys Chem Chem Phys 4:4051–4057
Pace CN (1986) Determination and analysis of urea and guanidine hydrochloride denaturation curves. Methods Enzymol 131:266–280
Gill SC, von Hippel PH (1989) Calculation of protein extinction coefficients from amino acid sequence data. Anal Biochem 182:319–326
Miles AJ, Wien F, Lees JG, Rodger A, Janes RW, Wallace BA (2003) Calibration and standardisation of synchrotron radiation circular dichroism and conventional circular dichroism spectrophotometers. Spectroscopy 17:653–661
Damianoglou A, Crust EJ, Hicks MJ, Howson SE, Knight AE, Ravi J, Scott P, Rodger A (2008) A new reference material for UV-visible circular dichroism spectroscopy. Chirality 20:1029–1038
Waldron DE, Marrington R, Grant MC, Hicks MR, Rodger A (2010) Capillary circular dichroism. Chirality 22:E136–E141
Johnson WCJ (1988) Secondary structure of proteins through circular dichroism spectroscopy. Annu Rev Biophys Biophys Chem 17:145–166
Johnson WCJ (1985) Circular dichroism and its empirical application to biopolymers. Methods Biochem Anal 31:61–163
Miguel MS, Marrington R, Rodger PM, Rodger A, Robinson C (2003) An Escherichia coli twin-arginine signal peptide switches between helical and unstructured conformations depending on hydrophobicity of the environment. Eur J Biochem 270:3345–3352
Green P (1999) PhD thesis, In Chemistry, University of Warwick, Coventry
Damianoglou A, Rodger A, Pridmore C, Dafforn TR, Mosely JA, Sanderson JM, Hicks MR (2010) The synergistic action of melittin and phospholipase A2 with lipid membranes: development of linear dichroism for membrane-insertion kinetics. Protein Pept Lett 17:1351–1362
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2013 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Daviter, T., Chmel, N., Rodger, A. (2013). Circular and Linear Dichroism Spectroscopy for the Study of Protein–Ligand Interactions. In: Williams, M., Daviter, T. (eds) Protein-Ligand Interactions. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1008. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-62703-398-5_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-62703-398-5_8
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana Press, Totowa, NJ
Print ISBN: 978-1-62703-397-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-62703-398-5
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols