Quantification of fluorescent samples by photon-antibunching

Anton Kurz; Michael Schwering; Dirk-Peter Herten

doi:10.1117/12.909099

13 February 2012 Quantification of fluorescent samples by photon-antibunching

Anton Kurz, Michael Schwering, Dirk-Peter Herten

Proceedings Volume 8228, Single Molecule Spectroscopy and Superresolution Imaging V; 82280K (2012) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.909099
Event: SPIE BiOS, 2012, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

Typical problems in molecular biology, like oligomerization of proteins, appear on non-resolvable length scales. Therefore a method which allows counting numbers of fluorescent emitters beyond this barrier can help to unveil these questions. One approach engaging this task makes use of the photon antibunching (PAB) effect. Most fluorophores are single photon emitters. Therefore upon a narrow excitation pulse they might only run through one excitation cycle and emit one photon at a time. This behavior is known as PAB. By analyzing coincident events of photon detections (Coincidence Analysis, CCA ) over many excitation cycles the number of fluorophores residing in the confocal volume can be estimated. Simulations have shown that up to 40 fluorophores can be distinguished with a reasonable error. In follow-up experiments five fluorophores could be distinguished by CCA. In this work the method is applied to a whole sample set and statistical variance and robustness are determined. CCA is critical to several parameters like photo stability, background noise, label efficiency and photopysical properties of the dye, like brightness and blinking. Therefore a reasonable scheme for analysis is introduced and setup parameters are optimized. To proof the superiority of CCA, it has been applied to estimate the number of dyes for a well-defined probe and the results have been compared with bleach step analysis (BS analysis), a method based on the ability to observe single bleach-steps.

Citation Download Citation

Anton Kurz, Michael Schwering, and Dirk-Peter Herten "Quantification of fluorescent samples by photon-antibunching", Proc. SPIE 8228, Single Molecule Spectroscopy and Superresolution Imaging V, 82280K (13 February 2012); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.909099

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