Optical properties of chromophore‐macromolecule complexes: Absorption and fluorescence of acridine dyes bound to polyphosphates and DNA

Abstract

Abstract Dye–macromolecule complexes provide good models for the study of the effects of coupling between chromophores. In addition to modifications of the visible and UV absorption spectra of the dyes at small interchromophore distances, very efficient energy transfer has been demonstrated at longer distances. The probability of nonradiative transition increases with the number of excitation transfers so that an array of oscillators close to one another becomes nonfluorescent. The insertion of a dye molecule, acting as a trap for the excitation energy, in the highly ordered system of chromophores constituted by the purine and pyrimidine bases of native DNA has given results supporting the intercalation model of Lerman and providing an experimental approach to the problem of the path length of energy migration in the DNA molecule. The average excitation path length seems to be of the order of only ten base pairs, a result which can explain the lack of fluorescence of the DNA.