Lanthanide probes have been used to detect conformational changes in proteins. Recently the Shaker potassium ion channel, a voltage-gated channel involved in nerve impulses was measured using this technique. Some scientist also have used lanthanide based luminescence resonance energy transfer (LRET) which is very similar to FRET to study conformational changes in RNA polymerase upon binding to DNA and transcription initiation in prokaryotes. LRET was also used to study the interaction of the proteins dystrophin and actin in muscle cells. Dystrophin is present in the inner muscle cell membrane and is believed to stabilize muscle fibers by binding to actin filaments. Specifically labelled dystrophin with Tb labelled monoclonal antibodies labeled were used.