Depolarization of Raman scattering from some nucleotides of RNA and DNA.

Depolarization ratios of Raman bands, excited at 488.0 nm, of guanosine-5'-monophosphoric acid, cytidine-5'-monophosphoric acid, adenosine-5'-monophosphoric acid, thymidine-5'-monophosphoric acid, and uridine-5'-monophosphoric acid have been measured in their H2O and D2O solutions in the spectral region from 300 to 1800 cm-1. For comparison, the disodium salt of 2'-deoxyadenosine-5'-monophosphoric acid was also subjected to the depolarization measurement in its H2O solution. The results have been correlated with possible orientations of the principal axes of the Raman scattering tensors as well as with the relative magnitudes of the tensor components. Results should be useful for future polarized Raman studies of synthetic and natural DNA.