Novel Optical Tweezers Probes: How Kinesin Motors Get to the Microtubule End

Abstract

Force spectroscopy on single molecular machines is often performed using optical tweezers. However, the use of common microspheres may have limitations in the maximum force, measurement precision, or the degrees of freedom that can be measured. To overcome these limitations, I will present various novel optical tweezers probes and their applications. For example, birefringent liquid crystalline microspheres can be used to simultaneously measure translation, force, rotation and torque of kinesin motors. The measurements show that kinesin walks with a rotary hand-over-hand mechanism. In the long-term, the development of novel probes enables novel applications.