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Updated: May 26, 2026

Characterization of Biological Absorption Spectra Spanning the Visible to the Short-Wave Infrared
Published on: January 10, 2025
Spectroscopic characterization of Venus at the single molecule level
Charlotte C David1, Peter Dedecker, Gert De Cremer
1Department of Chemistry, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Celestijnenlaan 200F, 3001, Heverlee, Belgium.
Abstract:
Venus is a recently developed, fast maturating, yellow fluorescent protein that has been used as a probe for in vivo applications. In the present work the photophysical characteristics of Venus were analyzed spectroscopically at the bulk and single molecule level. Through time-resolved single molecule measurements we found that single molecules of Venus display pronounced fluctuations in fluorescence emission, with clear fluorescence on- and off-times. These fluorescence intermittencies were found to occupy a broad range of time scales, ranging from milliseconds to several seconds. Such long off-times can complicate the analysis of single molecule counting experiments or single-molecule FRET experiments.
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