Methods to track single-molecule trajectories

Abstract

Methods are discussed to track single molecules in planar-supported phospholipid bilayers. Mainly, these methods constitute optimizations for a low signal-to-noise ratio and for the dim optical characteristics of single molecules. Algorithmic modifications to compensate and correct for misidentifications and misassignments are also described. One key advance, which exchanges the typically fragmented reconstruction of the molecules' motion for more complete trajectories, is the incorporation of information about the molecules' past and future positions into the tracking. Although the main point of these methods is to aid in extending methods of object tracking to the single-molecule regime, they may also find use in other situations where the signal-to-noise ratio is low.