TITLE:
Single Molecule Applications of Quantum Dots
AUTHORS:
Thomas E. Rasmussen, Liselotte Jauffred, Jonathan Brewer, Stefan Vogel, Esben R. Torbensen, B. Christoffer Lagerholm, Lene Oddershede, Eva C. Arnspang
KEYWORDS:
Quantum Dots; Single Particle Tracking; Fluorescence Correlation Spectroscopy; Optical Tweezers
JOURNAL NAME:
Journal of Modern Physics,
Vol.4 No.11B,
November
29,
2013
ABSTRACT: Fluorescent nanocrystals composed of
semiconductor materials were first introduced for biological applications in the
late 1990s. The focus of this review is to give a brief survey of biological applications
of quantum dots (QDs) at the single QD sensitivity
level. These are described as follows: 1) QD blinking and bleaching statistics, 2) the use of
QDs in high speed single
particle tracking with a special focus on how to design the biofunctional coatings
of QDs which enable specific targeting to single proteins or lipids of interest, 3) a hybrid lipid-DNA analogue binding
QDs which allows for tracking single lipids in lipid bilayers, 4) two-photon fluorescence correlation spectroscopy
of QDs and 5) optical trapping and excitation of single QDs. In all of these applications, the focus is on the single particle
sensitivity level of QDs. The high applicability of QDs in live cell imaging experiments
held together with the prospects in localization microscopy and single molecule
manipulation experiments gave QDs a promising future in single molecule research.