Force-Clamp Spectroscopy of Single Proteins

Force-clamp AFM, with its remarkable ability to manipulate short recombinant proteins, has become a useful probe of protein dynamics, allowing us to sense conformational changes down to the sub-Angstrom scale. The single protein data is providing a new view that will help guide the development of theories on enzyme catalysis, the statistical dynamics of folding, and ab initio studies of a chemical reaction while placed under a stretching force; of common occurrence in nature.