Fanciful FRET

Abstract

The validity of experiments based on Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET), an imaging technique widely used to measure protein-protein interactions in living cells, critically depends on the accurate and precise measurement of FRET efficiency. The use of FRET standards to determine FRET efficiency, and a consideration of such factors as how the abundance of FRET acceptors and the stoichiometry of donors and acceptors in a molecular complex can affect measured FRET efficiency, will enhance the usefulness with which FRET experiments can be interpreted.