A new method of infrared spectroscopy developed at BESSY II makes single-measurement observation and analysis of very fast as well as irreversible reaction mechanisms in molecules feasible for the first time.
Previously, thousands of such reactions have had to be run and measured for this purpose. The research team has now used the new device to investigate how rhodopsin molecules change after activation by light – a process that is the basis of how we see.
Time-resolved infrared spectroscopy in the sub-millisecond range is an important method for studying the relationship between function and structure in biological molecules. However, the method only works if the reaction can be repeated many thousands of times. This is not the case for a large number of biological processes, though, because they often are based on very rapid and irreversible reactions, for example in vision. Individual light quanta entering the rods of the retina activate the rhodopsin protein molecules, which then decay after fulfilling their phototransductionfunction.
>Read more on the BESSY II at HZB website
Image: Rhodopsin before (left) and after activation by light (right): The activation causes changes in functional groups inside the molecule (magnifying glass), which affect the entire molecule.
Credit: E. Ritter/HZB