Spectral Self-Interference Fluorescence Microscopy to Study Conformation of Biomolecules with Nanometer Accuracy

Despite the completion of the human genome sequencing, the revolution of personalized medicine still seems years away [1,2]. Although the Human Genome Project provides researchers with enormous amounts of genetic information, the genome is far more complex than the sequences it contains. Part of the reason is that DNA functions through critical interactions with proteins, such as genome packaging, epigenetic modifications, transcription, DNA replication, and DNA repair [3–7]. Since the idealized B-form DNA proposed more than 50 years ago by Watson and Crick, researchers have found that the conformation of DNA is naturally distorted and, depending on the particular sequence, DNA can be curved, tightly bent, or kinked [8–10]. These intrinsic variant conformations of DNA are recognized, stabilized, or even enhanced upon the formation of DNA–protein complexes CONTENTS