Related Experiment Video
Updated: Feb 2, 2026

Monitoring Equilibrium Changes in RNA Structure by 'Peroxidative' and 'Oxidative' Hydroxyl Radical Footprinting
Published on: October 17, 2011
Recent Advances in X-Ray Hydroxyl Radical Footprinting at the Advanced Light Source Synchrotron
Simon A Morton1, Sayan Gupta1, Christopher J Petzold1,2
1Advanced Light Source Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, Berkeley, CA, United States.
Background:
Synchrotron hydroxyl radical footprinting is a relatively new structural method used to investigate structural features and conformational changes of nucleic acids and proteins in the solution state. It was originally developed at the National Synchrotron Light Source at Brookhaven National Laboratory in the late nineties, and more recently, has been established at the Advanced Light Source at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The instrumentation for this method is an active area of development, and includes methods to increase dose to the samples while implementing high-throughput sample delivery methods.
Conclusion:
Improving instrumentation to irradiate biological samples in real time using a sample droplet generator and inline fluorescence monitoring to rapidly determine dose response curves for samples will significantly increase the range of biological problems that can be investigated using synchrotron hydroxyl radical footprinting.
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