Raman Spectroscopy and Virus Research

A survey is given of developments leading to the application of laser-Raman spectroscopy in structural studies of viruses and model nucleoproteins. The major constituents of viruses — nucleic acid and protein molecules — exhibit Raman spectra which differ greatly from one another, both in the spectral ranges that contain vibrational frequencies of conformational interest and in the relative intensities of Raman scattering of their respective subgroups. These features, not common to the infrared spectra, allow laser-Raman spectroscopy to be exploited for the study of viral assembly and nucleoprotein interactions. Examples considered here are the RNA-containing virus MS2, the DNA-containing viruses Pfl and fd, and the complex of polylysine with DNA.