A molecular-level understanding of the structure and function of the macromolecular machines of gene expression is pivotal in the future development of biochemistry. We use non-canonical CD-active fluorescent base analogues as optical probes to simultaneously monitor the global and local conformational changes to nucleic acid lattices on interaction with proteins and small molecules. 

The three complementary spectroscopic approaches to interpret local interactions of the probes with nearby nucleotide bases, small molecules, and protein binding are (i) UV-Vis (ii) Circular Dichroism and (iii) Fluorescence spectroscopy.