Circular dichroism nucleic acid analysis

The application of absorption and circular dichroism spectra to the study of nucleic acids is discussed by Gray et al. [3]. Examples of the advantages of circular dichroism spectra over absorption spectra in analysis of the stoichiometry and structure of DNA, RNA, and hybrid duplexes and triplexes are given. 

Johnson WC (1996) Spectroscopic methods in nucleic acid studies. In Fasman GD (ed.) Circular Dichroism and the Conformational Analysis of Biomolecules, pp. 433 68. New York Plenum. 

Induced circular dichroism (ICD) is the CD observed in an optically inactive (achiral) chromophore due to its interaction with an optically active (chiral) moiety. Early applications exploited ICD just as evidence for such an interaction. For example, the ICD in the absorption band of an achiral drug may be used to prove its binding to a (chiral) protein or nucleic acid. More recent use of ICD includes the structural information that theoretical analysis of the inducing mechanism can provide. ICD has been an important complement to linear dichroism (LD) for the assessment of binding geometries in drug-nucleic acid systems. 

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