Single-molecule Fluorescence Live-cell Imaging

Most current research on molecular and cell biology has been done in vitro using purified DNA, RNA, and proteins. These research efforts have surely provided valuable information on the cellular processes. However, the information obtained from in-vitro studies can be different from the real cellular processes happening inside cells, so a new trend has been to probe directly the complex cellular processes in living cells. In this review, we describe current single-molecule fluorescence-imaging techniques to detect a single protein in living cells. In the near future, as we see movies, single-molecule imaging techniques will visualize the reactions of biological molecules in cells.