ABEL-FRET: tether-free single-molecule FRET with hydrodynamic profiling

ABSTRACT Single-molecule Förster resonance energy transfer (smFRET) has become a versatile and widespread method to probe nanoscale conformation and dynamics. However, current experimental protocols often resort to molecule immobilization for long observation times and rarely approach the resolution limit of FRET-based nanoscale metrology. Here we present ABEL-FRET, an immobilization-free platform for smFRET measurements with near shot-noise limited, Angstrom-level resolution in FRET efficiency. Furthermore, ABEL-FRET naturally integrates hydrodynamic profiling, which harnesses single-molecule diffusion coefficient to enhance FRET sensing of biological processes.