RUI: Far-Infrared Spectroscopy of Oligonucleotides

完全了解具有生物学意义的DNA序列的分子和原子成分的内部运动是拟议中的工作将有助于实现的长期目标。这样的知识将直接关系到对蛋白质-DNA相互作用动力学的详细理解。这里提出的工作将有助于建立动力学-功能范式。具体地说，建议：(A)进行远红外测量，以确定：序列、长度以及生理和遗传毒性反离子如何影响寡核苷酸的长波振动，以及(B)开展一项计划，观察氢键熔化对各种寡核苷酸生物相关低频振动的影响。对一些随机多核苷酸序列进行了中红外和远红外测量，得到了相似的样品。完成这些任务的资源是本科生院校独有的。毕业论文学生将在校内使用研究级傅里叶变换红外光谱仪进行测量。他们还将提纯邻近研究实验室生产的大量寡核苷酸。

A complete understanding of the internal motions of the molecular and atomic components of biologically significant sequences of DNA is the long-term objective to which the proposed work would contribute. Such an knowledge would bear directly on the detailed understanding of the dynamics of protein-DNA interactions. The work proposed here would add to establishing a dynamics-function paradigm. Specifically, it is proposed to: (a) perform far-infrared measurements in order to determine how: sequence, length, and both physiological and genotoxic counterions affect the long wavelength vibrations of oligonucleotides, and (b) carry out a program to observe the effects of H-bond melting on biologically relevant low frequency vibrations of various oligonucleotides. Similar samples have been studied in the middle infrared and far-infrared measurements have been made on some random polynucleotide sequences. Resources for accomplishing these tasks are uniquely available for an undergraduate institution. Senior thesis students will make measurements with the on-campus research-level Fourier transform infrared spectrometer. They will also purify large quantities of oligonucleotides produced at a neighboring research laboratory.