Advance in quantitative single-molecule detection

Abstract

Single-molecule detection enables the measurement of molecules at the single-molecule level, and it can be used to study the conformational changes, dynamics, interaction between the molecules and the manipulation of single molecules. Especially, single-molecule detection has emerged as an ideal analytical approach to quantify low-abundance biomolecules with significant advantages of rapidity, simplicity, high sensitivity and low sample-consumption. Recently, great progress has been made in single-molecule fluorescence detection, which has found wide applications in a variety of research fields. In this review, we summarize the recent advance in single-molecule detection, focusing on its applications in sensitive detection of biomarkers (e.g., DNAs, enzymes and miRNAs) and the study of biomolecular structure and dynamics, biomolecule interactions, biomolecule modification as well as live cell assay. Furthermore, we give a new insight into the future direction of single-molecule detection.