Linear zero mode waveguides for the study of chemo-mechanical coupling mechanism of kinesin

摘要

We developed Linear Zero Mode Waveguides (LZMWs) for simultaneous observation of kinesin displacement and ATP hydrolysis cycle under higher concentration of fluorescently labeled ATP than that used in conventional total internal reflection microscopy (TIRFM). Single-molecule fluorescent microscopy is a promising method to analyze correlation between the mechanical displacement and hydrolysis of ATP by a kinesin molecule. However, the concentration of fluorescently labeled ATP was limited up to 10 nM in TIRFM, thus available data from experiment was limited. Proposed method enables to use ten times higher concentration of fluorescently labeled ATP by confining excitation lights in LZMWs, which are nano-slits with 100 nm in width.