Using optical tweezers and a novel detection technique (a quadrant photodiode at the back focal plane or, BFP-QD), this thesis investigates two problems in biophysics, ncd motility and microtubule flexural rigidity. We use optically trapped microspheres to probe the samples. The technique detects the displacements of the microspheres relative to the trap center by monitoring the laser intensity shifts in the back focal plane of the microscope condenser. We use a quadrant diode to detect the shifts, which are due to far-field interference between the trapping laser and scattered laser light from the trapped object. The method yields high-resolution (nm-spatial and μsec-temporal), two-dimensional data, which is largely independent of trap position in the field of view.; We first studied the motility of ncd, a kinesin-related motor protein. Motor proteins are able to harness the energy of ATP hydrolysis to perform mechanical work for the cell. Many ncd molecules were adsorbed onto silica microspheres and their motions along the microtubule surface lattice were observed with the BFP-QD method. Since the method is two-dimensional, we were able to monitor axial and lateral motions simultaneously. The average axial velocity was 230 ± 30 nm/sec (average ± SD). The high temporal resolution allowed us to investigate dynamical parameters. Spectral analysis showed an increase in viscous drag near the surface for ncd-driven microspheres. In addition, we found that the binding of the motors to microtubules in the presence of the nonhydrolyzable nucleotide adenylylimidodiphosphate caused an increase in the motor elastic constraint.; Using a dual optical trap configuration in conjunction with the BFP-QD, we also investigated the elastic properties of taxol-stabilized microtubules. Cytoskeletal filaments are responsible for myriad structural cell functions. Our results were not readily interpreted by a standard bent strut treatment because of the finite size of the microspheres used as probes. I calculated an extension to the regular theory, which proved promising. The flexural rigidity was 3.2 ± 1.0 pNμm2 which is consistent with other results in the literature.
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