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Optical tweezers study life under tension

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Optical tweezers have become one of the primary weapons in the arsenal of biophysicists, and have revolutionized the new field of single-molecule biophysics. Today's techniques allow high-resolution experiments on biological macromolecules that were mere pipe dreams only a decade ago.

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Figure 1: Biological applications of optical tweezers to kinesin motor stepping and RNA folding.
Figure 2: Twisting DNA with an optical torque wrench.
Figure 3: Examples of the diverse protein and nucleic acid systems that have been studied using optical tweezers, ranging in complexity from simple hairpins, formed in RNA or double-stranded DNA, to the bacterial ribosome, a macromolecular machine comprised of over 50 protein subunits and three structured RNA molecules (not to scale).

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Acknowledgements

S.M.B. acknowledges support from grant GM51453 from the National Institutes of Health.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Furqan M. Fazal is at the Department of Applied Physics, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.,

    Furqan M Fazal

  2. Steven M. Block is at the Department of Applied Physics and the Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, California 94305, USA.,

    Steven M Block

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  1. Furqan M Fazal
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Correspondence to Steven M Block.

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Fazal, F., Block, S. Optical tweezers study life under tension. Nature Photon 5, 318–321 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nphoton.2011.100

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