Fluorescence spectroscopy in molecular description of biological processes.

The power of fluorescence spectroscopy in enhancing our ability to obtain molecular description of complex biological processes is discussed. A brief account of sensitivity, selectivity and observable parameters of the various fluorescence methods and some typical applications which are mostly based on work in our laboratory are provided. The applications cover a wide range of areas such as protein dynamics, protein folding dynamics, protein-DNA interactions, membrane dynamics and intracellular dynamics. Interesting information revealed by fluorescence-based methods in each of these applications is highlighted.