Abstract

The use of fluorescent dyes which can be attached to specific cellular components as biological markers has become a well- established biomedical technique in recent years [1]. When optically stimulated, these dyes emit a characteristic fluorescence, enabling the structure and organization of the stained sample to be readily studied and visualized by means of fluorescence spectroscopy and confocal microscopy [2]. Moreover, some dyes exhibit enhanced fluorescence if attached to certain biological molecules. For instance, 4’,6- diamidino-2-phenylindole (DAPI) exhibits such enhanced fluorescence when attached to the AT base pairs on a DNA strand [3], Such properties are useful for mapping DNA structure or identifying the presence of particular molecules in a sample.

© 1996 Optical Society of America