To understand the intrinsic properties of peptides, which are determined by factors such as intramolecular hydrogen bonding, van der Waals bonding and electrostatic interactions, the conformational landscape of isolated protein building blocks in the gas phase was investigated. Here, we present IR-UV double-resonance spectra of jet-cooled, uncapped peptides containing a tryptophan (Trp) UV chromophore in the 1000-2000 cm(-1) spectral range. In the series Trp, Trp-Gly and Trp-Gly-Gly (where Gly stands for glycine), the number of detected conformers was found to decrease from six (Snoek et al., PCCP, 2001, 3, 1819) to four and two, respectively, which indicates a trend to relaxation to a global minimum. Density functional theory calculations reveal that the O-H in-plane bending vibration, together with the N-H in-plane bend ing and the peptide C=O stretching vibrations, is a sensitive probe to hydrogen bonding and, thus, to the folding of the peptide backbone in these structures. This enables the identification of spectroscopic fingerprints for the various conformational structures. By comparing the experimentally observed IR spectra with the calculated spectra, a unique conformational assignment can be made in most cases. The IR-UV spectrum of a Trp-containing nonapeptide (Trp-Ala-Gly-Gly-Asp-Ala-Ser-Gly-Glu) was recorded as well and, although the IR spectrum is less well-resolved (and it probably results from different isomers), groups of amide I (peptide C=O stretching) and amide II (N-H in-plane bending) bands can still be recognised, in agreement with predictions at the AM1 level.

The vibronic spectrum of the adenine-thymine (A-T) base pair was obtained by one-color resonant two-photon ionization (R2PI) spectroscopy in a free jet of thermally evaporated A and T under conditions favorable for formation of small clusters. The onset of the spectrum at 35,064 cm-1 exhibits a large red shift relative to the pi-pi* origin of 9H-adenine at 36,105 cm-1. The IR-UV spectrum was assigned to cluster structures with HNH...O=C/N...HN hydrogen bonding by comparison with the IR spectra of A and T monomers and with ab initio calculated vibrational spectra of the most stable A-T isomers. The Watson-Crick A-T base pair is not the most stable base-pair structure at different levels of ab initio theory, and its vibrational spectrum is not in agreement with the observed experimental spectrum. Experiments with methylated A and T were performed to further support the structural assignment.

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