Optical tweezers have become the method of choice in single-molecule manipulation
studies. In this Primer, we first review the physical principles of optical tweezers and the …

RNA nanotechnology is the bottom-up self-assembly of nanometer-scale architectures,
resembling LEGOs, composed mainly of RNA. The ideal building material should be (1) …

Despite the vital role of mechanical forces in biology, it still remains a challenge to image
cellular force with sub-100-nm resolution. Here, we present tension points accumulation for …

Molecular motors are diverse enzymes that transduce chemical energy into mechanical
work and, in doing so, perform critical cellular functions such as DNA replication and …

The T cell membrane is studded with> 104 T cell receptors (TCRs) that are used to scan
target cells to identify short peptide fragments associated with viral infection or cancerous …

The kinetics of DNA hybridization are fundamental to biological processes and DNA-based
technologies. However, the precise physical mechanisms that determine why different DNA …

Base stacking interactions between adjacent bases in DNA and RNA are important for many
biological processes and in biotechnology applications. Previous work has estimated …

Conventional techniques for detecting rare DNA sequences require many cycles of PCR
amplification for high sensitivity and specificity, potentially introducing significant biases and …

Oligonucleotide hybridization is crucial in various biological, prebiotic and
nanotechnological processes, including gene regulation, non-enzymatic primer extension …

Current approaches for single molecule force spectroscopy are typically constrained by low
throughput and high instrumentation cost. Herein, a low-cost, high throughput technique is …