Fluorescence imaging with one nanometer accuracy: application to molecular motors

Abstract

We introduce the technique of FIONA, fluorescence imaging with one nanometer accuracy. This is a fluorescence technique that is able to localize the position of a single dye within approximately 1 nm in the x-y plane. It is done simply by taking the point spread function of a single fluorophore excited with wide field illumination and locating the center of the fluorescent spot by a two-dimensional Gaussian fit. We motivate the development of FIONA by unraveling the walking mechanism of the molecular motors myosin V, myosin VI, and kinesin. We find that they all walk in a hand-over-hand fashion.