Optical trapping of individual human immunodeficiency viruses in culture fluid reveals heterogeneity with single-molecule resolution.

ABSTRACT: Optical tweezers use the momentum of photons to trap and manipulate microscopic objects, contact-free, in three dimensions. Although this technique has been widely used in biology and nanotechnology to study molecular motors, biopolymers and nanostructures, its application to study viruses has been very limited, largely due to their small size. Here, using optical tweezers that can simultaneously resolve two-photon fluorescence at the single-molecule level, we show that individual HIV-1 viruses can be optically trapped and manipulated, allowing multi-parameter analysis of single virions in culture fluid under native conditions. We show that individual HIV-1 differs in the numbers of envelope glycoproteins by more than one order of magnitude, which implies substantial heterogeneity of these

SUBMITTER: Pang Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4125448 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature