Extending the range of FRET—the Monte Carlo study of the antenna effect

The problem of extending the utilizable range of Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) is of great current interest, due to the demand of conformation studies of larger biological structures at distances exceeding typical limiting distance of 100 Å. One of the ways to address this issue is the use of so-called antenna effect. In the present work, the influence of the antenna effect on the FRET efficiency is investigated by the Monte Carlo analysis. The previously published results Bojarski et al. (J Phys Chem B 115:10120–10125, 2011) indicate that using a simple model of donor linked with a protein labeled with multiple acceptors, significantly increases the transfer efficiency in comparison with donor–single acceptor system. The effect is stronger if the transition moments of acceptors are mutually parallel. In this work, to extend the scope of possible biological systems to be analyzed, different distributions of donor–acceptors distance are analyzed, as well as the size and shape of the attached molecule.