Single-molecule biophysics is an interdisciplinary subject addressing biological questions using physics-based tools. We are interested in the study of protein-DNA interactions using various cutting-edge single-molecule tools, and developing new technology. Our laboratory was opened during the summer of 2018 in a newly-built Science Building (Edinburg campus) at the University of Texas Rio Grande Valley.
What is single-molecule biophysics?
Traditionally, biologists observed multiple (tens or even thousands of) molecules simultaneously and obtained "averaged" (ensemble) information. Although many useful information has been obtained from the ensemble measurements, oftentimes, they had limitation in revealing very detailed mechanisms due to the nature of averaging information. However, the advent of single-molecule biophysics techniques enabled scientists to observe "individual" biological molecules such as DNA or proteins one-by-one, extracting very insightful information that cannot be obtained by traditional methods.
Single-molecule biophysicists love to explain the concept of single-molecule techniques by using analogies. Below is our version of the explanation. San Francisco and Washington DC are located at the very similar latitudes. Not only the latitudes, but also their average temperatures in 2015 were also identical to each other. (This information is useful to some degree but can be misleading.) Here, the "average" temperature corresponds to traditional ensemble measurements in biology. However, if we measure "individual" daily temperatures in 2015, which corresponds to the single-molecule measurements, we can see very clear temperature differences between these two cities.
Ensemble measurements
Single-molecule measurements
DNA-protein interaction
Single-molecule techniques have been utilized in many different areas including motor protein studies. In our laboratory, we are specifically interested in DNA-protein interaction. As all of you know, DNAs are much longer than the size of a cell so that they need to be compacted to be accommodated in the tiny cell volume. The DNA compaction is not a random process. It is a sophisticated procedure.
There are four main mechanisms of DNA condensation: (1) Bending or wrapping, (2) Bridging two different segments of a DNA, (3) DNA loop extrusion, (4) Compaction mediated by phase separation.
We can distinguish above compaction mechanisms utilizing single-molecule techniques.
However, above is just one example of what we do. There are much more, so please stay suned!
Specific techniques we use
Under construction