Sum-frequency generation (SFG) microscopy can be used to visualize biomolecular assemblies that exhbit a non-zero second-order optical response, including fibrillar structures such as collagen and myosin. In principle, SFG images can be used to extract detailed information about the molecular structure and conformation of such assemblies. In practice, due to the complexity of the biomolecular structures, relatively simple models have been used for analyzing the structural properties of fibrillar compounds. In this presentation, we model the SFG signal of fibrillar collagen by computing the anticipated response with the aid of atomistic data from the protein data bank. By accounting for the orientation of all molecular contributors to the signal, a clearer picture of the information content of the SFG signal is obtained, allowing more precise assignments of the SFG spectral features as well as a better interpretation of collagen organization at the sub-micrometer level.

Modeling the second-order optical response of large biomolecular assemblies

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