Monitoring the molecular conformation of Individual amphotericin B Molecules in an aggregated state by Raman optical activity

The polyene antifungal amphotericin B (AmB) can form gianthelical aggregates. We show that microscopic and mesoscopic structural features ofits aggregates can be revealed by Raman optical activity (ROA) and electroniccircular dichroism (ECD), respectively. The ROA method, which senses molecularstructure more locally, elucidates the conformation of the polyene chain ofindividual AmB molecules in an aggregated state. In turn, the ECD signal relatedto exciton coupling effects provides details about the arrangement of AmBmolecules in the supramolecular structure. Thus, the use of both complementarymethods will be crucial in future structural studies of chiral supramolecularsystems.