Good vibrations: probing biomolecular structure and interactions through spectroscopy in the gas phase

Abstract

Spectroscopic investigations of biomolecular structure and interactions in the gas phase, free from environmental ‘disturbance’, have become a growth industry over the last decade. The great majority however, have taken their ‘bio-pedigrees’ as a given rather than an issue to be addressed. This review attempts to move towards aspects of their biological, or perhaps more accurately, biochemical relevance, by reviewing some recent and current investigations of peptide and carbohydrate systems in the gas phase, chosen not just because they are ‘do-able’ but because of the biochemical questions they address. Hopefully, this will help to foster better communication between the molecular physics, biochemistry and molecular biology communities.

Keywords:

• biomolecules
• vibrational spectroscopy
• conformation
• peptides
• carbohydrates

Acknowledgments

First, I thank Professor Benjamin Davis for his inspirational research collaboration and guidance in matters biochemical; second, I am grateful to Professors Marie-Pierre Gaigeot and Thomas Rizzo, and Drs Michel Mons and Timothy Vaden for their generous help in providing some of the illustrative figures; and lastly but certainly not least, I owe a great debt to Drs Emilio Cocinero, Cristina Stanca-Kaposta, Timothy Vaden and Pierre Çarçabal for being such good colleagues in recent years.