Given the potential health hazards of drug enantiomers, chiral recognition is of great interest. Several chiral recognition methods have been developed, unfortunately no method is uniformly applicable. Therefore, developing a broadly applicable chiral recognition technique would be quite useful. This research will investigate fluorescence anisotropy as a means to study chiral recognition by examining the relationship between fluorescence anistropy and the free energy of association. An empirical relationship between chiral selectivity determined using micellar electrokinetic chromatography (MEKC) and fluorescence anisotropy has been reported. Furthermore, the relationship between differential free energies of association and MEKC is well established. It follows, then, that fluorescence anisotropy should be related to the changes in free energy of association. Several fluorescence and NMR experiments, as well as mathematical models, will be designed to develop a relationship between fluorescence anisotropy and free energy of association. Additional NMR and MEKC experiments will validate any observed relationship. Ultimately, this study should provide theoretical evidence for the empirical relationship between MEKC and fluorescence anisotropy. ? ?
