Using Photon Statistics to Understand Microsecond Dynamics of Proteins

Single molecule fluorescence spectroscopy is a method of choice for studying the mechanism of action of complex biological machines in real time In particular single molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer smFRET where the interaction between two fluorescent molecules is probed has been shown to yield important insights on protein dynamics We recently developed a novel photon by photon analysis method that pushes the time resolution of smFRET to the microsecond time scale In this lecture I will briefly describe how photon statistics can be used to obtain information on protein motions and then show how we apply it to important biological problems