Fluorescence lifetime measurements for biosensor and control molecules in the presence and absence of IgE ligands.
A, shown are fluorescence decays (excitation 468 nm, emission 510 nm) and bi-exponential fits (line plots) and their photon-counting weighted residuals for the mRFP-IgEFc-eGFP biosensor (open black circles) or control molecules (open red circles). Green circles are the instrument response function (IRF). Non-overlap of the fits indicates a shorter fluorescence lifetime for the mRFP-IgEFc-eGFP biosensor and that it is, therefore, undergoing FRET. B, shown are fluorescence decays (excitation 468 nm, emission 510 nm) and bi-exponential fits (line plots) and their photon-counting weighted residuals for the mRFP-IgEFc-eGFP biosensor alone (open black circles) or saturated with sFcϵRIα (open red circles). Green circles are the instrument response function. Non-overlap of the fits indicates a shorter fluorescence lifetime for the mRFP-IgEFc-eGFP biosensor in the presence of sFcϵRIα. C, shown is mean values of the results of independent experiments (n = 5) for the true average lifetimes (¯τ) calculated using Equation 2. Significant values were determined using a one-way analysis of variance with the Tukey-Kramer test. Only the biosensor mRFP-IgEFc-eGFP shows FRET, with changes in true average lifetimes on binding to both sFcϵRIα and omalizumab Fab.