Förster Resonance Energy Transfer

FRET http://photobiology.info/PDF/History%20of%20FRET.pdf https://link.springer.com/article/10.1140%2Fepjh%2Fe2013-40007-9

by Dr. B. Wieb VanDerMeer, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Western Kentucky University, Bowling Green, KY 42101-1077, USA.

FRET is Fluorescence with Resonance Energy Transfer, or Fluorescence-detected Resonance Energy Transfer, or Förster Resonance Energy Transfer. It is an absorption of electromagnetic radiation by one molecule, the “donor,” followed by resonance interaction with another molecule, the “acceptor.” As a result, energy is transferred from donor to acceptor. The two molecules can be different or identical. If the two molecules are different, the process is called “hetero-transfer” (illustrated in Figure 1). If the two are identical we speak of “homo-transfer” (illustrated in Figure 2) and the energy can go back and forth for a while or go to yet another molecule until emission or a radiation-less transition takes place. FRET is extremely sensitive to the distance between the interacting molecules and can be used to visualize interactions and to measure distances between 1 and 10 nanometers.