Optical Tweezers: Methods and Protocols

Part I: Historic Views on the Invention of Lasers and Optical Tweezers

1. The Invention of the Laser

Nick Taylor

2. Art Ashkin and the Origins of Optical Trapping and Particle Manipulation

Matthias D. Koch and Joshua W. Shaevitz

Part II: Technical Advances

3. Synthesis of Germanium Nanospheres as High Precision Optical Tweezers Probes

Swathi Sudhakar, Viktoria Wedler, Pasupathi Rajendran, and Erik Schäffer

4. Angular Optical Trapping to Directly Measure DNA Torsional Mechanics

Xiang Gao, James T. Inman, and Michelle D. Wang

5. Implementation of 3D Multi-Color Fluorescence Microscopy in a Quadruple Trap Optical Tweezers System

Anna E.C. Meijering, Julia A.M. Bakx, Tianlong Man, Iddo Heller, Gijs J.L. Wuite, and Erwin J.G. Peterman

6. One-Dimensional STED Microscopy in Optical Tweezers

Tianlong Man, Joost J. Geldhof, Erwin J.G. Peterman, Gijs J.L. Wuite, and Iddo Heller

7. Temperature Quantification and Temperature Control in Optical Tweezers

Joost J. Geldhof, Agata M. Malinowska, Gijs J.L. Wuite, Erwin J.G. Peterman, and Iddo Heller

8. High-Resolution Optical Tweezers Combined with Multi-Color Single-Molecule Microscopy

Rajeev Yadav, Kasun B. Senanayake, and Matthew J. Comstock

Part III: DNA, DNA Motors and DNA-Protein Interactions

9. Generating Negatively Supercoiled DNA Using Dual-Trap Optical Tweezers

Graeme A. King, Dian Spakman, Erwin J.G. Peterman, and Gijs J.L Wuite

10. Force-Activated DNA Substrates for In Situ Generation of ssDNA and Designed ssDNA/dsDNA Structures in an Optical-Trapping Assay

Arnulf M.K. Taylor, Stephen R. Okoniewski, Lyle Uyetake, and Thomas T. Perkins

11. Probing the Interaction between Chromatin and Chromatin-Associated Complexes with Optical Tweezers

Rachel Leicher and Shixin Liu

12. Simultaneous Mechanical and Fluorescence Detection of Helicase-Catalyzed DNA Unwinding

Lulu Bi, Zhenheng Qin, Xi-Miao Hou, Mauro Modesti, and Bo Sun

13. CRISPR/Cas9 On- and Off-Target Activity Using Correlative Force and Fluorescence Single-Molecule Microscopy

Matthew D. Newton, Benjamin J. Taylor, Maria Emanuela Cuomo, and David S. Rueda

Part IV: Protein (Un)Folding

14. Co-Temporal Single-Molecule Force and Fluorescence Measurements to Determine the Mechanism of Ribosome Translocation

Varsha P. Desai, Filipp Frank, and Carlos J. Bustamante

15. Using Single-Molecule Optical Tweezers to Study the Conformational Cycle of the H