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Figure 3 | BMC Bioinformatics

Figure 3

From: Graphical models for inferring single molecule dynamics

Figure 3

(A) Cartoon of a smFRET experiment studying the zipping/unzipping of a DNA hairpin. A FRET donor chromophore (green balloon) and acceptor chromophore (red balloon) are attached to the DNA. When the DNA is zipped (left), exciting the donor with green light causes the majority of energy to be transferred to the acceptor. The donor will fluoresce dimly and the acceptor will fluoresce brightly. When the DNA is unzipped, the probes are too far apart for efficient FRET. Exciting the donor in this conformation causes it to fluoresce brightly and the acceptor to fluoresce dimly. (B) The two channel (donor, acceptor) time series generated by the DNA as it transitions between zipped (bright red, dim green) and unzipped (dim red, bright green). (C) The 1D FRET transformation of the time series from B, calculated with Eq. 4. The closer the probes, the more intense the signal. Time series of this summary statistic are commonly used for analysis.

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