Fluorescence Recovery after Photobleaching (FRAP) is a technique widely used in cell biology to observe the dynamics of biological systems, including the diffusion of membrane components. More information is needed on the dynamics of photosynthetic membranes in order to help to understand processes such as photosynthetic electron transport, regulation of light-harvesting, and biogenesis and turnover of the photosynthetic apparatus. FRAP has the potential to provide this information, although applying the technique to photosynthetic membranes is not always straightforward. This review explains the potential and the problems, and gives a brief guide to performing FRAP measurements and analysing the data.
Copyright 2004 Society for Experimental Biology