In this work, a concept is described for how the kinetics of photoinduced, transient, long-lived, nonfluorescent or weakly fluorescent states of fluorophore marker molecules can be extracted from the time-averaged fluorescence by using time-modulated excitation. The concept exploits the characteristic variation of the population of these states with the modulation parameters of the excitation and thereby circumvents the need for time resolution in the fluorescence detection. It combines the single-molecule sensitivity of fluorescence detection with the remarkable environmental responsiveness obtainable from long-lived transient states, yet does not in itself impose any constraints on the concentration or the fluorescence brightness of the sample molecules that can be measured. Modulation of the excitation can be performed by variation of the intensity of a stationary excitation beam in time or by repeated translations of a CW excitation beam with respect to the sample. As a first experimental verification of the approach, we have shown how the triplet-state parameters of the fluorophore rhodamine 6G in different aqueous environments can be extracted. We demonstrate that the concept is fully compatible with low time-resolution detection by a CCD camera. The concept opens for automated transient-state monitoring or imaging on a massively parallel scale and for high-throughput biomolecular screening as well as for more fundamental biomolecular studies. The concept should also be applicable to the monitoring of a range of other photoinduced nonfluorescent or weakly fluorescent transient states, from which subtle changes in the immediate microenvironment of the fluorophore marker molecules can be detected.

The polymerization of Abeta is a highly cooperative process in which the formation of very large aggregates precedes the formation of fibrils. The entire process can be inhibited and, at least in early stages, partly reversed by Abeta ligands.

An alternative version of fluorescence correlation spectroscopy is presented, where the signal from a medium surrounding the particles of interest is analyzed, as opposed to a signal from the particles themselves. This allows for analysis of unlabeled particles and potentially of biomolecules. Here, the concept together with principal experiments on polystyrene beads of 100, 200, 400, and 800 nm diameter in an aqueous solution of alexa 488-fluorophores are presented. The use of photo detectors allowing higher photon fluxes, or of reduced detection volumes, should enable analysis of significantly smaller particles or even biomolecules.

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