Ultrafast fluorescence spectroscopy reveals a dominant weakly-emissive population of fibril bound thioflavin-T

Abstract

In this communication, using sub-picosecond resolved fluorescence upconversion spectroscopy, we discover that despite a large fluorescence enhancement observed for thioflavin-T in insulin fibrils, the majority of fibril bound thioflavin-T undergoes efficient ultrafast conformational relaxation, and thus does not contribute to the characteristic fluorescence enhancement.