Surveying Life One Molecule at a Time: Single Molecule Methods Dig Deeper into Contemporary Biology

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Background

Many biological processes greatly depend on the precise molecular behaviors of biomolecules. In the last couple of decades, the study of biomolecules by novel single-molecule detection and manipulation tools has revolutionized the basic sciences. By analyzing the behavior of individual particles, single-molecule methods provide access to molecular details, such as heterogeneity and temporal dynamics, that cannot be resolved using ensemble-averaged traditional bulk methods. As such, the single-molecule toolbox has been applied to study proteins, lipids, DNA, RNA, and their interactions, as well as diverse compound biomolecules. Studying one molecule at a time can provide extraordinarily clear and often surprising insights in molecular conformational dynamics and mechanistic details of molecular machines. These methods can provide detailed information about molecular mechanisms and interactions by direct observation of molecular sub-populations, short-lived or transient states, rare molecular events, non-uniform kinetics in individual molecules.

This Research Topic aims to provide a platform for researchers to share current developments, implementations, and future perspectives related to the single-molecule observation and manipulation techniques. This release will include articles reporting development of novel methods, significant advancements in the present techniques, and their applications. We especially emphasize studies of single-molecule approaches to biological, biomolecular systems, nanotechnology, engineering, clinical, and other forthcoming prospects. We wish to unite fundamental single-molecule research with its diverse applications to feature how these technologies can solve pertinent challenges in various fields.

The aim of this Research Topic is to cover promising, recent, and novel research trends, as well as reviews and future perspectives in the single molecule biology field.
Areas to be covered in this Research Topic may include, but are not limited to:

• New single molecule method development, and/or significant advancement of existing methods in terms of instrumentation, assay development, and data analysis. These methods may include single molecule fluorescence localization, FRET, FCS, particle tracking, AFM, optical/magnetic/hydrodynamic force techniques, nano pores to name a few.
• Application of Single molecule techniques to study biological system.
• Application of Single molecule techniques for physical/chemical tool development (e.g sensors application, imaging application, DNA/RNA/protein sequencing).
• High throughput single molecule assays and their application.
• Comprehensive review/perspective of single molecule techniques, landmark achievements, and futuristic direction.

A list of accepted article types including descriptions can be found at this link

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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