Single molecule nanomanipulation of biomolecules

The development of nanomanipulation techniques has given investigators the ability to manipulate single biomolecules and to record mechanical events o f biomolecules at the single molecule level. The techniques were developed to elucidate the mechanism of molecular motors. We can directly monitor the unitary process of the mechanical work and the energy conversion processes by combining these techniques with the single molecule imaging techniques. Our results strongly suggest that the sliding movement of the actomyosin m otor is driven by Brownian movement. Other groups have reported data that a re more consistent with the lever arm model. These methods and imaging tech niques enable us to monitor the behavior of biomolecules at work and will h e applied to other molecular machines.