Journal of Physical Chemistry B, Vol.122, No.22, 5870-5876, 2018
Observation of Ultrafast Vibrational Energy Transfer in Fibrinogen and Fibrin Fibers
We study the secondary structure of the blood protein fibrinogen using two-dimensional infrared spectroscopy. With this technique, we identify the amide I' vibrational modes of the antiparallel beta-sheets and turns of fibrinogen. We observe ultrafast energy flow among these amide I' vibrational modes with a time constant of similar to 7 ps. This energy transfer time constant does not change significantly upon fibrin fiber formation, indicating that the secondary structure of the fibrinogen monomers remains largely unchanged in the polymerization process.