New Standards in Nanoscale Single Molecule Force Measurement

摘要

Force spectroscopy is the method of choice, whenever scientists want to understand how individual biomolecules, small compounds, polymers and surfaces interact with each other. It is a potential method for experiments on molecular forces of single biological molecules, such as molecular machines, folding and unfolding of proteins, detecting energy landscapes of membrane proteins, dynamics to molecular design and binding site localization. It features a high spatial resolution on biological samples on a subnanometer scale addressing new and challenging questions to biological and medical sciences. Main element of a force spectroscope is an atomically sharp tip on a very sensitive cantilever. By actuation of extremely small motor and piezoelectric stages the cantilever tip can be precisely directed so, that single molecules can be attached, manipulated or observed in their molecular interactions to other bio-molecules or drugs. In contrast to its undoubted benefits in many application areas, the technology is not as widely-used as one should expect. This is due to the fact, that traditional force spectroscopes are sophisticated to use, need numerous manual adjustments, manual alignment and calibration procedures and permanent controlling by the user.