Evaluation of Blue and Far-Red Dye Pairs in Single-Molecule Förster Resonance Energy Transfer Experiments

Forster resonance energy transfer (FRET) is a powerful tool to probe molecular interactions, activity, analytes, forces, and structure. Single-molecule (sm)FRET additionally allows real-time quantifications of conformation and conformational dynamics. smFRET robustness critically depends on the employed dyes, yet a systematic comparison of different dye pairs is lacking. Here, we evaluated blue (Atto488 and Alexa488) and far-red (Atto647N, Alexa647, StarRed, and Atto655) dyes using confocal smFRET spectroscopy on freely diffusing double-stranded (ds)DNA molecules. Via ensemble analyses (correlation, lifetime, and anisotropy) of single-labeled dsDNA, we find that Alexa488 and Atto647N are overall the better dyes, although the latter interacts with DNA. Via burstwise analyses of double-labeled dsDNA with interdye distances spanning the complete FRET-sensitive range (3.5–9 nm), we show that none of the dye pairs stands out: distance accuracies were generally <1 nm and precision was ∼0.5 nm. Finally, excitati...