Fig. 3: Construction of time traces to measure the binding kinetics between the imager and docking strands.

a A time trace that represents binding events between the docking and imager strands can be constructed by linking blinks that persist over consecutive frames. Alternatively, we can allow a certain number of dark frames between blinks and construct a time trace by linking blinks that are separated in time by up to a dark time threshold set by the expected binding time between the imager and docking strands. b Measurements of the binding times from time traces constructed by only linking persistent blinks are susceptible to errors and result in a poor fit between the experimental CDF and an exponential distribution (lefthand graph). Time traces with blinks linked based on the expected binding time between the imager and docking strands provide more accurate measurements of the times between binding events and the experimental CDF follows more closely the expected exponential distribution (righthand graph). c The rate of change of the RMSE error between the experimental CDF and the expected exponential distribution as a function of the dark time threshold used to link the blinks.