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Updated: Aug 20, 2026

Proteome-wide Quantification of Labeling Homogeneity at the Single Molecule Level
Published on: April 19, 2019
Probing ligand-protein recognition with sum-frequency generation spectroscopy: the avidin-biocytin case
Laurent Dreesen1, Yannick Sartenaer, Christophe Humbert
1Laboratoire de Spectroscopie Moléculaire de Surface, University of Namur, rue de Bruxelles, 61, 5000 Namur, Belgium. laurent.dreesen@fundp.ac.be
Abstract:
Infrared/visible sum-frequency generation (SFG) spectroscopy is used to study the recognition of a protein (avidin) by a derived vitamin (biocytin) adsorbed on a calcium fluoride substrate. The specificity of the process is tested by replacing avidin with bovine serum albumin or presaturated avidin. The SFG spectroscopy shows drastic modifications in the CH and NH spectral ranges only upon exposure of the biocytin film to avidin. The comparison of the SFG data with Fourier transform infrared reflection absorption spectra (FT-IRRAS) in the same spectral ranges illustrates the advantages of nonlinear spectroscopy for studying and detecting recognition between biomolecules.

