Abstract. Processive molecular motors act as intracellular transporters of a broad range of cargoes varying from organelles to messenger RNAs. Due to the nanometre range movements and complex dynamics of these motors, highly specialized tools are required to study them, in particular at the single-molecule level. Such tools are what physicists are providing for understanding these biological systems. Fluorescence based real-time localization techniques, with 1 nm spatial resolution and down to 1 ms temporal resolution (FIONA: fluorescence imaging with one-nanometre accuracy), and their applications to a group of molecular motors (myosin V, myosin VI, kinesin, and dynein) are the topics of this paper. In addition to the well established in vitro studies, the recent applications of these techniques to the much more challenging, but also more informative, in vivo realm will be discussed.

Print publication: Issue 47 (30 November 2005)
Received 16 August 2005
Published 4 November 2005