Magnetic Circular Dichroism Spectroscopy

Being able to probe the structure and energy levels of metal ions in biological systems is an important goal of bioinorganic scientists. Several of the techniques used rely on the paramagnetic property of certain oxidation states of metal ions. MCD spectroscopy is one of those techniques and represents an effective way of obtaining structure/electronic information of paramagnetic metal ions. The basics of this technique are discussed along with examples of how MCD spectroscopy has been successfully used to elucidate the metal clusters of Nif proteins from nitrogen-fixing bacteria.