Circular dichroism in protein folding studies.

Protein folding is a biological process of both fundamental significance and practical importance, and protein misfolding is implicated in a number of serious diseases of both humans and animals. The study of protein folding requires a technique that is able to monitor changes in protein structure in solution, with millisecond time resolution. Ultraviolet circular dichroism (CD) is such a technique, providing information on both secondary and tertiary protein structure. This unit describes the procedures for performing CD experiments for the study of protein folding, and identifies commonly encountered problems and their solutions.