Development of ultrafast detection system for the single molecule fluorescence based on hybrid photo detector

2015 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 26650045
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Exploratory Research
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Biophysics
• Research Institution: Tohoku University
• Principal Investigator: Takahashi Satoshi 東北大学, 多元物質科学研究所, 教授 (30283641)
• Co-Investigator(Renkei-kenkyūsha): KAMAGATA KIYOTO 東北大学, 多元物質科学研究所, 助教 (90432492)
• Project Period (FY): 2014-04-01 – 2016-03-31
• Keywords: 一分子蛍光分光法 / タンパク質 / フォールディング / ライン共焦点顕微鏡

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Single molecule fluorescence spectroscopy (SMFS) is a powerful method for the characterization of protein dynamics; however, the past methods of SMFS has the limit in the time resolution of the fluorescence detection and can not resolve events occurring within 1 ms. In this investigation, we used line confocal microscopy and combined it with the new photodetector, hybrid photodetector (HPD), and enabled to detect fluorescence signals from single molecules at the time resolution of 10 microsecond and for the duration of 10 millisecond. We further characterized the dynamics of a protein, BdpA, and observed that the unfolded BdpA shows various dynamics that should be important for the understanding of protein folding. The developed method can be applied to various proteins and their dynamics at the single molecule level.

Free Research Field

生物物理