The chiral properties of the hindwings of Anomala albopilosa (male) were investigated using a microscopic vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) system.

A two-dimensional map of proteins, including secondary structures, was obtained for the hindwings of an insect (Anomala albopilosa) at the spatial resolution of 100 µm. Mapping was achieved with the microscopic vibrational circular dichroism (VCD) system, which has been developed in our laboratory. As a result, the insect hindwing was revealed to be composed of segregated microdomains consisting of proteins with different secondary structures.

Insect wings are interesting and attractive as unique examples of bioinspired and biomimetic materials. They exhibit multi-functional features and provide a natural model for developing a functional device based on organic polymers. Although there are many studies on the structures of insect wings using spectroscopic or morphological methods, only a few focused on their chiral properties.

The present work is unprecedented in that it focused on the supramolecular chiral aspect of a targeted insect hindwing sample. We report the application of a multi-dimensional vibrational circular dichroism system (MultiD-VCD) to the hindwings of an insect (Anomala albopilosa (male) ). The MultiD-VCD system with a QCL (quantum cascade laser) was recently developed for the microscopic two-dimensional mapping of VCD signals. The mapping was performed at the spatial resolution of 100 µm on insect hindwing tissue. As a result, it was revealed that the insect hindwing is composed of segregated microdomains consisting of proteins with different secondary structures. The uniqueness of the present method is demonstrated by the following aspects: (i) the observed microscopic distribution of proteins is unattainable by conventional FT-IR spectroscopy; (ii) the identification of a secondary structure of a protein is realized in situ with no pretreatment of the biological sample, such as coating, grinding or solvent extraction.

Reference URL: https://pubs.acs.org/doi/full/10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01949

Bibliographic Information

Mapping of Supramolecular Chirality in Insect Wings by Microscopic Vibrational Circular Dichroism Spectroscopy: Heterogeneity in Protein Distribution
Hisako Sato, Akihiko Yamagishi, Masaru Shimizu, Keisuke Watanabe , Jun Koshoubu , Jun Yoshida and Izuru Kawamura
The Journal of Physical Chemistry Letters, 2021, 12, 7733-7737, Doi: 10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01949

Fundings

• the Japan Science and Technology Agency JST MIRAI grants (JPMJMI18GC)

Media

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  Mapping of Supramolecular Chirality in Insect Wings by Microscopic Vibrational Circular Dichroism Spectroscopy

  IR intensity mapping and VCD spectra of Anomala albopilosa

  credit : Hisako Sato, Ehime University
  Usage Restriction : Please get copyright permission