Single molecule fluorescence spectroscopy for quantitative biological applications

Abstract

Single molecule techniques emerge as powerful and quantitative approaches for scientific investigations in last decades. Among them, single molecule fluorescence spectroscopy (SMFS) is able to non-invasively characterize and track samples at the molecular level. Here, applications of SMFS to fundamental biological questions have been briefly summarized in catalogues of single-molecule counting, distance measurements, force sensors, molecular tracking, and ultrafast dynamics. In these SMFS applications, statistics and physical laws are utilized to quantitatively analyze the behaviors of biomolecules in cellular signaling pathways and the mechanisms of biological functions. This not only deepens our understanding of bio-systems, but also provides a fresh angle to those fundamental questions, leading to a more quantitative thinking in life science.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

single-molecule fluorescence spectroscopy / biomolecule detection / molecular tracking / molecular dynamics / molecular mechanism

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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This work was supported by the State Key Development Program for Basic Research of China (No. 2013CB837200), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 11474345 and 21573281), the Beijing Natural Science Foundation (No.€7154221), and the Fundamental and Advanced Research Program of Chongqing (Grant # cstc2013jcyjA10047), China. We also gratefully acknowledge support from the Research Start Fund for Talent Recruitment, Chongqing University.

COMPLIANCE WITH ETHICS GUIDELINES

The authors Ruchuan Liu, Yuliang Li and Liyu Liu declare that they have no conflict of interests.ƒThis article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects performed by any of the authors.

Funding

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2016 Higher Education Press and Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg