Resonance Raman studies of ligand binding

The underlying principle of Raman spectroscopy is based on the interaction between light and matter, specifically molecules' inelastic scattering of photons. When a monochromatic beam of light, typically from a laser source, interacts with a sample, most scattered light has the same frequency as the incident light. This is known as Rayleigh scattering.
However, a small fraction of the scattered light exhibits a frequency shift due to the exchange of energy between the incident photons and...

Proteins are dynamic macromolecules that carry out a wide variety of essential processes; however, the activities of most proteins depend on their interactions with other molecules or ions, known as ligands.
Protein-ligand interactions are quite specific; even though numerous potential ligands surround a cellular protein at any given time, only a particular ligand can bind to that protein. Moreover, a ligand binds only to a dedicated area on the surface of the protein, known as the...

No description available

No description available

Allosteric proteins have more than one ligand binding site; the binding of a ligand to any of these sites influences the binding of ligands to the other sites. When a protein is allosteric, its binding sites are called coupled or linked.  In the case of enzymes, the site that binds to the substrate is known as the active site and the other site is known as the regulatory site. When a ligand binds to the regulatory site, this leads to conformational changes in the protein that can influence...

The equilibrium binding constant (Kb) quantifies the strength of a protein-ligand interaction. Kb can be calculated as follows when the reaction is at equilibrium: