Acquisition of a Spectrofluorometer

购买荧光分光光度计

• 批准号: 8703363
• 负责人: Robert Steiner
• 金额: $ 6.1万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland Baltimore County
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 1988
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 1988-09-01 至 1991-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=8703363&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Acquisition; Spectrofluorometer

Funds have been provided for the purchase of a high performance static spectrofluorometer for shared use by a group of investigators. The instrument will be used for four different projects involving proteins, each of which utilizes fluorescence as a technique. Fluorescence intensity measurements will be used as a means of monitoring such processes as protein-protein and protein-nucleic acid interactions, ligand-induced conformational changes, and accessibility of fluorophors to quencher. Measurements of fluorescence anisotropy will also be used to study protein associations and conformational changes. Fluorescence energy transfer will be employed as a "spectroscopic ruler" to measure the separation of sites on a protein. Studies of the above kinds require an instrument with high sensitivity and stability, low background, and capability of providing corrected spectra. The individual projects are concerned with the properties and interactions of the Ca2+-binding regulatory proteins calmodulin and troponin C, the nature of the catalytic site of papain, the characteristics of nucleic acid-unwinding proteins, and the properties of the topoismerase enzymes which mediate alterations in the geometry of DNA. A central goal of molecular biology is to elucidate the structure of specific molecules and determine how their chemical characteristics influence their activity. One approach is fluorescence spectroscopy, which provides data about molecular subgroups and molecule-molecule interactions. This kind of information explains biological processes at their most basic level.

为购买高性能静态荧光分光计提供了资金，供一组研究人员共同使用。该仪器将用于涉及蛋白质的四个不同项目，每个项目都利用荧光作为技术。荧光强度测量将用作监测诸如蛋白质-蛋白质和蛋白质-核酸相互作用，配体诱导的构象变化以及荧光团对猝灭剂的可及性等过程的手段。荧光各向异性的测量也将用于研究蛋白质的结合和构象变化。荧光能量转移将被用作“光谱标尺”来测量蛋白质上位点的分离。上述类型的研究需要具有高灵敏度和稳定性、低本底和提供校正光谱能力的仪器。个别项目涉及Ca2+结合调节蛋白钙调蛋白和肌钙蛋白C的性质和相互作用，木瓜蛋白酶催化位点的性质，核酸解绕蛋白的特征，以及介导DNA几何结构改变的拓扑异构酶的特性。分子生物学的一个中心目标是阐明特定分子的结构，并确定它们的化学特性如何影响它们的活性。一种方法是荧光光谱，它提供了分子亚群和分子-分子相互作用的数据。这类信息在最基本的层面上解释了生物过程。