Fast single-molecule FRET spectroscopy: theory and experiment.

ABSTRACT: Single-molecule spectroscopy is widely used to study macromolecular dynamics. Although this technique provides unique information that cannot be obtained at the ensemble level, the possibility of studying fast molecular dynamics is limited by the number of photons detected per unit time (photon count rate), which is proportional to the illumination intensity. However, simply increasing the illumination intensity often does not help because of various photophysical and photochemical problems. In this Perspective, we show how to improve the dynamic range of single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy at a given photon count rate by considering each and every photon and using a maximum likelihood method. For a photon trajectory with recorded photon colors and inter-photon times, the parameters

SUBMITTER: Chung HS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4154966 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature