[Progress in study of biomacromolecular damages by infrared spectroscopy]

Infrared spectroscopy (IR) is employed as an important tool in the investigation of biological macromolecules because of its high sensitivity and nondestructivity to samples. When proteins, lipids or nucleic acids are damaged, the position, shape and intensity of their IR characteristic absorption peaks will be significantly changed. This provides evidences for the determination of the damages of biomolecules, which further shed light on the clarification of the occurrence, development and early prevention of some diseases. In the present paper, the applications of IR to the detection of biomolecular damages are reviewed. Various IR techniques are introduced, including Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy microscope and so on. A general review was performed for the application of IR technique to the qualitative and quantitative analysis of secondary structure of protein, fluidity of membrane lipid, interaction of drugs with DNA and so on. The existing problems of IR were pointed out and the prospect of IR technique in the field of biomedicine was discussed. It is expected that, in the future the researches involving IR techniques will be focused on the application in early diagnosis of diseases, instrumental combinations and quantitative techniques.