This project involves the development and enhancement of scanning force microscopy (SFM) for imaging of biological specimens. New technical capabilities for SFM will be explored to improve methods to investigate multi-protein-DNA complexes by SFM in air, including a novel method to label these complexes for SFM studies and a method to determine protein-induced DNA bending. In addition, an SFM-based nanomanipulator instrument will be developed and methods for the production of sharper probes will be explored to improve the spatial resolution of the SFM. The combination of these enhancements should greatly expand the applicability of SFM to biological systems.
