Spectral techniques, relationship other

We shall conclude this chapter with a few speculative remarks on possible future developments of nonlinear IR spectroscopy on peptides and proteins. Up to now, we have demonstrated a detailed relationship between the known structure of a few model peptides and the excitonic system of coupled amide I vibrations and have proven the correctness of the excitonic coupling model (at least in principle). We have demonstrated two realizations of 2D-IR spectroscopy a frequency domain (incoherent) technique (Section IV.C) and a form of semi-impulsive method (Section IV.E), which from the experimental viewpoint is extremely simple. Other 2D methods, proposed recently by Mukamel and coworkers (47), would not pose any additional experimental difficulty. In the case of NMR, time domain Fourier transform (FT) methods have proven to be more sensitive by far as a result of the multiplex advantage, which compensates for the small population differences of spin transitions at room temperature. It was recently demonstrated that FT methods are just as advantageous in the infrared regime, although one has to measure electric fields rather than intensities, which cannot be done directly by an electric field detector but requires heterodyned echoes or spectral interferometry (146). Future work will have to explore which experimental technique is most powerful and reliable. 

Luminescence spectroscopy is an analytical method derived from the emission of light by molecules which have become electronically excited subsequent to the absorption of visible or ultraviolet radiation. Due to its high analytical sensitivity (concentrations of luminescing analytes 1 X 10 9 moles/L are routinely determined), this technique is widely employed in the analysis of drugs and metabolites. These applications are derived from the relationships between analyte concentrations and luminescence intensities and are therefore similar in concept to most other physicochemical methods of analysis. Other features of luminescence spectral bands, such as position in the electromagnetic spectrum (wavelength or frequency), band form, emission lifetime, and excitation spectrum, are related to molecular structure and environment and therefore also have analytical value. 

Under electrochemical conditions, electrons are added to (reduction) or withdrawn from (oxidation) a molecule or ion of interest at an electrode surface and the consequences of that process are followed by means of many electrochemical, spectral, and other techniques. Naturally, there is no assurance that the redox pathways and mechanisms developed on the basis of electrochemical experiments will bear any relationship to biological redox pathways. Nevertheless, there is now a small but significant body of evidence which supports the view that redox mechanisms deduced for small organic biomolecules using purely electrochemical techniques do give rather unique insights into biological redox processes. 

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