Single-molecule fluorescence imaging of DNA maintenance protein binding dynamics and activities on extended DNA

Defining the molecular mechanisms by which genome maintenance proteins dynamically associate with and process DNA is essential to understand the potential avenues by which these stabilizing mechanisms are disrupted. Single-molecule fluorescence imaging (SMFI) of protein dynamics on extended DNA has greatly expanded our ability to accomplish this, as it captures singular biomolecular interactions – in all their complexity and diversity – without relying on ensemble-averaging of bulk protein activity as most traditional biochemical techniques must do. In this review, we discuss how SMFI studies with extended DNA have substantially contributed to genome stability research over the past two years.