A Fluorescence Correlation Spectrometer for Measurements in Cuvettes

Abstract

We have developed a fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) setup for performing single-molecule measurements on samples inside regular cuvettes. The cuvette FCS uses a horizontally mounted extra-long working distance, 0.7 NA, air objective with a working distance of >1.8 mm instead of a high NA water or oil immersion objective. The performance of the cuvette FCS is found to be highly sensitive to the quality and alignment of the cuvette. The radial resolution and effective observation volume obtained using the optimized setup are ∼340 nm and 1.8 fL, respectively. The highest molecular brightness and the signal/noise ratio in the autocorrelation data achieved using an aqueous solution of rhodamine B are greater than 44 kHz and 110, respectively. Here, we demonstrate two major advantages of cuvette FCS. For example, the cuvette FCS can be used for measurements over a wide range of temperatures that is beyond the range permitted in the microscope-based FCS. Furthermore, cuvette FCS can be coupled to automatic titrators to study urea-dependent unfolding of proteins with unprecedented accuracy. The ease of use and compatibility with various accessories will enable applications of cuvette FCS in the experiments that are regularly performed in spectrofluorometers but are generally avoided in microscope-based FCS.