scholarly journals Monte-Carlo Diffusion-Enhanced Photon Inference: Distance Distributions And Conformational Dynamics In Single-Molecule FRET

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Antonino Ingargiola ◽  
Shimon Weiss ◽  
Eitan Lerner

AbstractSingle-molecule Förster Resonance Energy Transfer (smFRET) is utilized to study the structure and dynamics of many bio-molecules, such as proteins, DNA and their various complexes. The structural assessment is based on the well-known Förster relationship between the measured efficiency of energy transfer between a donor (D) and an acceptor (A) dye and the distance between them. Classical smFRET analysis methods called photon distribution analysis (PDA) take into account photon shot-noise, D-A distance distribution and, more recently, interconversion between states in order to extract accurate distance information. It is known that rapid D-A distance fluctuations on the order of the D lifetime (or shorter) can increase the measured mean FRET efficiency and thus decrease the estimated D-A distance. Nonetheless, this effect has been so far neglected in smFRET experiments, potentially leading to biases in estimated distances.Here we introduce a PDA approach dubbed Monte-Carlo-diffusion-enhanced photon inference (MC-DEPI). MC-DEPI recolor detected photons of smFRET experiments taking into account dynamics of D-A distance fluctuations, multiple interconverting states and photo-blinking. Using this approach, we show how different underlying conditions may yield identical FRET histograms and how the additional information from fluorescence decays helps distinguishing between the different conditions. We also introduce a machine learning fitting approach for retrieving the D-A distance distribution, decoupled from the above-mentioned effects. We show that distance interpretation of smFRET experiments of even the simplest dsDNA is nontrivial and requires decoupling the effects of rapid D-A distance fluctuations on FRET in order to avoid systematic biases in the estimation of the D-A distance distribution.

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Carl DeHaven

This thesis contains four topic areas: a review of single-molecule microscropy methods and splicing, conformational dynamics of stem II of the U2 snRNA, the impact of post-transcriptional modifications on U2 snRNA folding dynamics, and preliminary findings on Mango aptamer folding dynamics.


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders Barth ◽  
Lena Voith von Voithenberg ◽  
Don C. Lamb

AbstractSingle-molecule Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) is a powerful tool to study conformational dynamics of biomolecules. Using solution-based single-pair FRET by burst analysis, conformational heterogeneities and fluctuations of fluorescently labeled proteins or nucleic acids can be studied by monitoring a single distance at a time. Three-color FRET is sensitive to three distances simultaneously and can thus elucidate complex coordinated motions within single molecules. While three-color FRET has been applied on the single-molecule level before, a detailed quantitative description of the obtained FRET efficiency distributions is still missing. Direct interpretation of three-color FRET data is additionally complicated by an increased shot noise contribution when converting photon counts to FRET efficiencies. However, to address the question of coordinated motion, it is of special interest to extract information about the underlying distance heterogeneity, which is not easily extracted from the FRET efficiency histograms directly. Here, we present three-color photon distribution analysis (3C-PDA), a method to extract distributions of inter-dye distances from three-color FRET measurements. We present a model for diffusion-based three-color FRET experiments and apply Bayesian inference to extract information about the physically relevant distance heterogeneity in the sample. The approach is verified using simulated data sets and experimentally applied to triple-labeled DNA duplexes. Finally, 3C-FRET experiments on the Hsp70 chaperone BiP reveal conformational coordinated changes between individual domains. The possibility to address the co-occurrence of intramolecular distances makes 3C-PDA a powerful method to study the coordination of domain motions within biomolecules during conformational changes.SignificanceIn solution-based single-molecule Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) experiments, biomolecules are studied as they freely diffuse through the observation volume of a confocal microscope, resulting in bursts of fluorescence from single molecules. Using three fluorescent labels, one can concurrently measure three distances in a single molecule but the experimentally limited number of photons is not sufficient for a straight-forward analysis. Here, we present a probabilistic framework, called three-color photon distribution analysis (3C-PDA), to extract quantitative information from single-molecule three-color FRET experiments. By extracting distributions of interdye distances from the data, the method provides a three-dimensional description of the conformational space of biomolecules, enabling the detection of coordinated movements during conformational changes.


Author(s):  
Hsin-Chih Yeh ◽  
Christopher M. Puleo ◽  
Yi-Ping Ho ◽  
Tza-Huei Wang

In this report, we review several single-molecule detection (SMD) methods and newly developed nanocrystal-mediated single-fluorophore strategies for ultrasensitive and specific analysis of genomic sequences. These include techniques, such as quantum dot (QD)-mediated fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) technology and dual-color fluorescence coincidence and colocalization analysis, which allow separation-free detection of low-abundance DNA sequences and mutational analysis of oncogenes. Microfluidic approaches developed for use with single-molecule detection to achieve rapid, low-volume, and quantitative analysis of nucleic acids, such as electrokinetic manipulation of single molecules and confinement of sub-nanoliter samples using microfluidic networks integrated with valves, are also discussed.


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