Oblique line scan illumination enables expansive, accurate and sensitive single-protein measurements in solution and in living cells

An ideal tool for the study of cellular biology would enable the measure of molecular activity nondestructively within living cells. Single-molecule localization microscopy (SMLM) techniques, such as single-molecule tracking (SMT), enable in situ measurements in cells but have historically been limited by a necessary tradeoff between spatiotemporal resolution and throughput. Here we address these limitations using oblique line scan (OLS), a robust single-objective light-sheet-based illumination and detection modality that achieves nanoscale spatial resolution and sub-millisecond temporal resolution across a large field of view. We show that OLS can be used to capture protein motion up to 14 μm2 s−1 in living cells. We further extend the utility of OLS with in-solution SMT for single-molecule measurement of ligand–protein interactions and disruption of protein–protein interactions using purified proteins. We illustrate the versatility of OLS by showcasing two-color SMT, STORM and single-molecule fluorescence recovery after photobleaching. OLS paves the way for robust, high-throughput, single-molecule investigations of protein function required for basic research, drug screening and systems biology studies. Oblique line scan microscopy achieves nanoscale spatial and sub-millisecond temporal resolution across a large field of view, enabling improved and robust single-molecule biophysical measurements and single-molecule tracking in both cells and solution.