Table 2.

Effectiveness of specific compounds is environment sensitive and can be used in combination to minimize photophysical processes in the Ribosome system

	Ribosome system
	Cy dyes
	Total ton(s)	Total toff(s)	% Total ton(%)	ntransitions(s−1)
No compounds	1.8	0.8	70.3	1.0
2 mM COT	2.2	0.7	76.4	0.8
2 mM NBA	3.2	0.6	85.4	0.2
2 mM Trolox	1.2	0.2∗	95.5∗	0.3
All compounds	6.3	0.4	96.7	0.1

Values of Total t_on, Total t_off, the percent time each of the systems investigated is in the nonzero FRET state before photobleaching, % Total t_on (Total t_on/Total t_on + Total t_off), and the number of transitions per second, n_transitions, are shown in absence and presence of 2 mM COT, 2 mM NBA, or 2 mM Trolox separately and in combination (illumination intensity = 0.65 kW/cm²). As described in the Materials and Methods, the reported values of Total t_on and Total t_off were calculated by fitting, and the total percent time in nonzero FRET states, % Total t_on, was calculated by dividing the total dwells in the zero FRET state by the total length of the smFRET time trace before photobleaching. Exponential fitting was carried out in Origin. In each case a minimum of 532 number of transitions were observed and fitting resulted in R² values >0.995.

^∗Denotes quantities that could not be accurately determined due to extremely fast photobleaching and/or too few number of transitions.