smCamera: all-in-one software package for single-molecule data acquisition and data analysis

Abstract

In the last decades, biological applications of single-molecule methods have grown rapidly and researchers with expertise in microscopy and instrumentation have adopted these techniques and advanced them even further. However, practicing single-molecule methods is still challenging for most because of the need for expensive equipments and instrumentation demands as well as complicated data acquisition and analysis workflow consisting of multiple steps using different software in each of them. smCamera is an all-in-one software package which aims to alleviate steep learning curves of the data acquisition and analysis. From recording movies through extraction of time series of single-molecule fluorescence resonance energy transfer (smFRET), everything can be done in a single program without any additional software or programming languages. Although smCamera has not been published before, it has been distributed to facilitate adaption of smFRET experiments and there has been requests for support for this software. We hope that this work answers questions from researchers using smCamera and also provides an opportunity to introduce and distribute smCamera for new users.