Abstract

We propose to investigate the room-temperature excited-state properties of DNA and its analogs by steady-state and time- resolved fluorometry.
We aim at establishing: 1. The occurrence and extent of migration of excitation energy along the double helix. 2. The degree of conformational flexibility of the double helix. 3. Ground- and excited-state interactions between the bases. 4. The pathways of deexcitation of the excited states. The proposed research will greatly enhance our knowledge of the structure and dynamics of nucleic acids and it will elucidate the primary events involved in their photodamage. We have already established the feasibility of several aspects of this research. This proposal requests support that will enable us to carry out a systematic investigation.

  Funding Agency

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
National Institute of General Medical Sciences (NIGMS)
Type
Research Project (R01)
Project #
5R01GM038236-03
Application #
3294445
Study Section
Molecular and Cellular Biophysics Study Section (BBCA)
Project Start
1988-07-01
Project End
1991-06-30
Budget Start
1990-07-01
Budget End
1991-06-30
Support Year
3
Fiscal Year
1990
Total Cost
Indirect Cost

  Institution

Name
University of Tennessee Knoxville
Department
Type
Schools of Arts and Sciences
DUNS #
City
Knoxville
State
TN
Country
United States
Zip Code
37996

  Publications

Georghiou, S; Gerke, L S (1999) Excited-state properties of thymidine and their relevance to its heterogeneous emission in double-stranded DNA. Photochem Photobiol 69:646-52
Georghiou, S; Kubala, S M; Large, C C (1998) Environmental control of the deformability of the DNA double helix. Photochem Photobiol 67:526-31
Georghiou, S; Bradrick, T D; Philippetis, A et al. (1996) Large-amplitude picosecond anisotropy decay of the intrinsic fluorescence of double-stranded DNA. Biophys J 70:1909-22
Phillips, G R; Georghiou, S (1993) Global analysis of steady-state polarized fluorescence spectra using trilinear curve resolution. Biophys J 65:918-26
Dion, A; Linn, C E; Bradrick, T D et al. (1993) How do mutations at phenylalanine-153 and isoleucine-155 partially suppress the effects of the aspartate-27-->serine mutation in Escherichia coli dihydrofolate reductase? Biochemistry 32:3479-87
Huang, C R; Georghiou, S (1992) Room-temperature steady-state fluorescence properties of poly(dG-dC).poly(dG-dC). Photochem Photobiol 56:95-9
Georghiou, S; Phillips, G R; Ge, G (1992) Resolution of the electronic absorption spectra of the adenine and thymine residues in poly(dA).poly(dT). Biopolymers 32:1417-20
Ge, G; Georghiou, S (1991) Excited-state properties of the alternating polynucleotide poly(dA-dT).poly(dA-dT). Photochem Photobiol 54:301-5
Ge, G; Georghiou, S (1991) Room-temperature fluorescence properties of the polynucleotide polydA.polydT. Photochem Photobiol 54:477-80
Ge, G Y; Zhu, S; Bradrick, T D et al. (1990) Fluorometric analysis of the long-wavelength absorption band of N-7 methylated GMP into the constituent bands of the two electronic states. Photochem Photobiol 51:557-63

Showing the most recent 10 out of 11 publications