Flow birefringence

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In biochemistry, flow birefringence is a hydrodynamic technique for measuring the rotational diffusion constants (or, equivalently, the rotational drag coefficients. The birefringence of a solution sandwiched between two concentric cylinders is measured as a function of the difference in rotational speed between the inner and outer cylinders. The flow tends to orient an ellipsoidal particle (typically, a protein, virus, etc.) in one direction, whereas rotational diffusion (tumbling) causes the molecule to become disoriented. The equilibrium between these two processes as a function of the flow provides a measure of the axial ratio of the ellipsoidal particle.


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Protein structure determination methods
High resolution: X-ray crystallography | NMR | Electron crystallography
Medium resolution: Cryo-electron microscopy | Fiber diffraction | Mass spectrometry
Spectroscopic: NMR | Circular dichroism | Absorbance | Fluorescence | Fluorescence anisotropy
Translational Diffusion: Analytical ultracentrifugation | Size exclusion chromatography | Light scattering | NMR
Rotational Diffusion: Fluorescence anisotropy | Flow birefringence | Dielectric relaxation | NMR
Chemical: Hydrogen-deuterium exchange | Site-directed mutagenesis | Chemical modification
Thermodynamic: Equilibrium unfolding
Computational: Protein structure prediction | Molecular docking
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