Single molecule methods can provide detailed information about molecular mechanisms and interactions, complementing bulk assays with additional information that is often difficult or impossible to observe using traditional methods. Single molecule imaging also provides the basis for PALM/STORM-type super-resolution imaging.
By analyzing the behavior of individual particles, single molecule methods provide access to details of a population’s characteristics that are obscured by ensemble averaging. For instance, these methods allow direct observation of:
- molecular sub-populations
- short-lived or transient states
- rare molecular events
- non-uniform kinetics
- mechanical and thermodynamic information about mechanochemical events in individual molecules
These reviews provide descriptions of the assays we support:
- “Do-it-yourself guide: how to use the modern single-molecule toolkit”, Walter et al., Nature Methods (2008)
- “Biological mechanisms, one molecule at a time”, Tinoco and Gonzales, Genes and Development (2011)
- “A practical guide to single-molecule FRET”, Roy, Hohng, and Ha, Nature Methods (2008)
- “Single-molecule force spectroscopy: optical tweezers, magnetic tweezers and atomic force microscopy”, Neuman and Nagy, Nature Methods (2008)
SMART Center Contacts
| Damon Hoff | SMART Center Manager | CHEM 3080 | (734) 763-5449 | hoffj@umich.edu |
| Nils Walter | SMART Center Director | CHEM 2405 | (734) 615-2060 | nwalter@umich.edu |
