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Science 12 March 1999:
Vol. 283. no. 5408, pp. 1689 - 1695
DOI: 10.1126/science.283.5408.1689
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Review

Single-Molecule Biomechanics with Optical Methods

Amit D. Mehta, 1 Matthias Rief, 1 James A. Spudich, 1* David A. Smith, 2 Robert M. Simmons 2*

Single-molecule observation and manipulation have come of age. With the advent of optical tweezers and other methods for probing and imaging single molecules, investigators have circumvented the model-dependent extrapolation from ensemble assays that has been the hallmark of classical biochemistry and biophysics. In recent years, there have been important advances in the understanding of how motor proteins work. The range of these technologies has also started to expand into areas such as DNA transcription and protein folding. Here, recent experiments with rotary motors, linear motors, RNA polymerase, and titin are described.

1 Department of Biochemistry B400, Stanford University School of Medicine, Stanford, CA 94305-5307, USA.
2 Randall Institute, King's College London, 26-29 Drury Lane, London WC2B 5RL, UK.
*   To whom correspondence should be addressed.

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