Determination of the Efficiency and Energy Transfer Rate in the Fluorescence of a Single Donor–Acceptor Pair Attached to a Biomolecule

Abstract

Resonance energy transfer from a single donor molecule to a single acceptor molecule (Förster resonance energy transfer) is currently used to determine the microscopic parameters describing interconformational changes in a protein molecule to which this single donor–acceptor pair is attached. A recently developed method makes it possible to intricately search for such parameters using a formula for the efficiency of Förster resonance energy transfer, which is the sum of several Gaussians. Another simpler method for the determination of the desired parameters of interconformational transitions has been proposed in this work on the basis of statistical processing of fluctuating tracks of fluorescence of a single donor–acceptor pair attached to a protein molecule.