A multimodal, correlative magnetic tweezers-TIRF platform for high-throughput single-molecule interrogations

Abstract

Single-molecule techniques can resolve biological reactions at unmatched detail, but their low throughput and single-modality readouts have kept them out of data-intensive pipelines such as omics and drug discovery, and beyond reach of low-yield biological systems. Here we introduce a multimodal platform integrating high-throughput magnetic tweezers with ultra-wide-and flat-field objective-based total internal reflection fluorescence, enabling simultaneous force, torque, multicolor fluorescence, and temperature-dependent measurements on up to thousands of individual molecules in parallel and in real time. We demonstrate accurate single-molecule Forster resonance energy transfer (smFRET) for prism-based spectral imaging, capture temperature-dependent hairpin folding dynamics at high temporal resolution with smFRET and use correlative torque-fluorescence measurements to unravel the open-complex formation dynamics during bacterial transcription initiation. By unifying high resolution, throughput, and multimodal readout, this platform enables multidimensional dissection of complex biomolecular reactions with high statistical confidence, unlocking single-molecule biophysics for integration with drug discovery, omics, and cryo-EM workflows.