NEW POSTER REVEALS LATEST APPLICATION OF HR-US TITRATION TECHNOLOGY FOR MONITORING LIGAND BINDING

A new technical poster discussing the use of HR-US Titration analysis to monitor ligand binding for material analysis was presented by Ultrasonic Scientific Ltd., innovator in High-Resolution Ultrasonic Spectroscopy (HR-US) at the recent PITTCON 2006 conference.

This novel technique is capable of analysing molecular bindings with or without minimum sample preparation in both dilute and concentrated samples as well as in the original sample without immobilising and dilution. It is extremely sensitive, non-destructive, can be used in non-transparent dispersions and requires small sample volumes down to 0.04 mL.

A ligand is a molecule that binds on a macromolecule’s surface by intermolecular forces. Ligand binding is a process of particularly high importance as a wide variety of physiological processes are the reflection of ligand interactions with macromolecules, especially with proteins or nucleic acids. Ligand binding is usually reversible and leads to a structural rearrangement of the molecules in question thus altering their susceptibility to participating in other types of chemical reactions.

Ultrasonic Scientific has developed a revolutionary HR-US Titration system combining the award-winning HR-US 102 spectrometer with innovative Titration accessories to monitor ligand binding with ultimate accuracy and confidence. The system is equipped with a titration module as well as with a specially designed double stirrer, which provides fast and homogenous mixing of samples while also allowing the analysis of samples during the sedimentation and creaming. Operating software enables programming of titration sequences via simple step-by-step instructions.

The HR-US Titration systems operation is based on the precision measurements of velocity and attenuation of the ultrasonic waves propagating through the analysed sample. Ultrasonic velocity provides information on the high-frequency elasticity of the sample, which is determined by intermolecular forces and is extremely sensitive to any change in hydration, molecular structure of the sample and conformation of polymers. Ultrasonic attenuation is determined by the energy losses in the ultrasonic wave and allows analysis of particle size, kinetics of fast chemical reactions and aggregation.