CD spectrophotometer

智能聚合物是包含信息的分子。具有特异性识别互补链并因此形成双链体的能力的天然核酸RNA和DNA可以被认为是“智能聚合物”。寡肽和蛋白质是天然存在的“智能聚合物”，其启发了结合非天然报告基团的聚酰胺的合成用于生物传感器的开发。类似地，人造或合成聚合物可以被设计和合成为具有基于特定序列或结构的读出的类似信息内容。这些合成的智能聚合物中的一些与核酸密切相关，而另一些则更加不同。尽管如此，智能聚合物相互作用形成结构的方式仍需要研究--最有效的技术之一是使用CD分光光度计测量圆二色光谱。智能聚合物（双链体和其他螺旋）与小分子的相互作用是生物学中的一种基本相互作用。例如，与DNA相互作用的药物，从而形成了一些现代化疗方法的基础，可以通过CD分光光度法进行研究-这也是正在进行的研究领域。此外，寡肽的构象变化，例如由与所需靶标的相互作用驱动的构象变化，可以作为生物传感器开发的基础。

Smart Polymers are information-containing molecules. The natural nucleic acids, RNA and DNA, which have the ability of specifically recognizing a complementary strand and thus forming a duplex, may be considered as "smart polymers". Oligopeptides and proteins are naturally occuring "smart polymer" that has inspired the synthesis of polyamides that incorporate unnatural reporter groups for biosensor development. Simiarly, artificial or synthetic polymers can be designed and synthesized to have similar information content based on readout of a particular sequence or structure. Some of these synthetic smart polymers are closely related to nucleic acids and other are more divergent. Nonetheless, the way in which smart polymers interact to form structures requires investigation - and one of the most powerful techniques is by measuring the circular dichroic spectrum using an instrument known as a CD spectrophotometer.As well, the interaction of smart polymers (duplexes and other helices) with smaller molecules is a fundamental interaction in biology. For example, drugs that interact with DNA and thus form the basis of some modern chemotherapeutic approaches, may be investigated by CD spectrophotometry - and this is the area of research being pursued too. Further, conformational changes of oligopeptides for instance driven by interaction with a desired target may serve as the basis for biosensor development.