Quantitative Imaging Of the Green Fluorescent Proteins

1998 ◽  
Vol 4 (S2) ◽  
pp. 1004-1005
Author(s):  
David W. Piston ◽  
George H. Patterson ◽  
Susan M. Knobel

The cloning and expression of GFP in heterologous systems introduced a fantastic tool for studying specific gene expression and protein localization inside living cells. However, one aspect of GFP that has not been exploited to its full potential is its use as a quantitative imaging tool. To determine its quantitative usefulness, we have addressed five points that are important in GFP imaging: detectable signal over background, photostability, pH stability of the molecule, temperature dependence of chromophore formation, and estimation and normalization of GFP levels.To determine the quantitative limits of GFP in cells, several GFP versions (wtGFP, αGFP (F99S/M153T/V163A), S65T, EGFP (F64L/S65T), and a blue-shifted variant, EBFP (F64L/S65T/Y66H/Y145F)) were compared by imaging of GFP expressing cells or by spectroscopic measurements of purified proteins. When imaged, the GFP signals are contaminated by the naturally occurring background autofluorescence, but improved detection can be achieved for each green GFP by combination of confocal microscopy using 488 nm excitation, a rapid cut-on dichroic mirror, and a narrow bandpass emission filter (Figure l).

1997 ◽  
Vol 3 (S2) ◽  
pp. 133-134 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ammasi Periasamy ◽  
Richard N. Day

The pituitary specific transcription factor Pit-1 is required for transcriptional activity of the prolactin (PRL) gene. The Pit-1 protein is a member of the POU homeodomain transcription factors that is expressed in several different anterior pituitary cell types, where it functions as an important determinant of pituitary-specific gene expression. The Pit-1 protein generally interacts with DNA elements in the PRL gene promoter as a dimer, and has been demonstrated to associate with other transcription factors. The objective of our research is to define the critical molecular events involved in transcriptional regulation of the PRL gene in living cells. Methods that allow monitoring of the intimate interactions between protein partners in living cells provide an unparalleled perspective on these biological processes. Using the jellyfish green fluorescent protein (GFP) as a tag, we applied the fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) technique to visualize where and when the Pit-1 protein interacts in the living cell. FRET is a quantum mechanical effect that occurs between donor (D) and acceptor (A) fluorophores provided: (i) the emission energy of D is coincident with the energy required to excite A, and (ii) the distance that separating the two fluorophores is 10-100 Å. Mutant forms of GFP that fluoresce either green or blue (BFP) have excitation and emission spectra that are suitable for FRET imaging.


2001 ◽  
Vol 86 (15) ◽  
pp. 3439-3442 ◽  
Author(s):  
Riccardo A. G. Cinelli ◽  
Valentina Tozzini ◽  
Vittorio Pellegrini ◽  
Fabio Beltram ◽  
Giulio Cerullo ◽  
...  

2017 ◽  
Vol 114 (11) ◽  
pp. E2146-E2155 ◽  
Author(s):  
Chi-Yun Lin ◽  
Johan Both ◽  
Keunbong Do ◽  
Steven G. Boxer

Split GFPs have been widely applied for monitoring protein–protein interactions by expressing GFPs as two or more constituent parts linked to separate proteins that only fluoresce on complementing with one another. Although this complementation is typically irreversible, it has been shown previously that light accelerates dissociation of a noncovalently attached β-strand from a circularly permuted split GFP, allowing the interaction to be reversible. Reversible complementation is desirable, but photodissociation has too low of an efficiency (quantum yield <1%) to be useful as an optogenetic tool. Understanding the physical origins of this low efficiency can provide strategies to improve it. We elucidated the mechanism of strand photodissociation by measuring the dependence of its rate on light intensity and point mutations. The results show that strand photodissociation is a two-step process involving light-activated cis-trans isomerization of the chromophore followed by light-independent strand dissociation. The dependence of the rate on temperature was then used to establish a potential energy surface (PES) diagram along the photodissociation reaction coordinate. The resulting energetics–function model reveals the rate-limiting process to be the transition from the electronic excited-state to the ground-state PES accompanying cis-trans isomerization. Comparisons between split GFPs and other photosensory proteins, like photoactive yellow protein and rhodopsin, provide potential strategies for improving the photodissociation quantum yield.


2022 ◽  
Vol 23 (2) ◽  
pp. 770
Author(s):  
Mikhail Drobizhev ◽  
Rosana S. Molina ◽  
Jacob Franklin

Red fluorescent proteins and biosensors built upon them are potentially beneficial for two-photon laser microscopy (TPLM) because they can image deeper layers of tissue, compared to green fluorescent proteins. However, some publications report on their very fast photobleaching, especially upon excitation at 750–800 nm. Here we study the multiphoton bleaching properties of mCherry, mPlum, tdTomato, and jREX-GECO1, measuring power dependences of photobleaching rates K at different excitation wavelengths across the whole two-photon absorption spectrum. Although all these proteins contain the chromophore with the same chemical structure, the mechanisms of their multiphoton bleaching are different. The number of photons required to initiate a photochemical reaction varies, depending on wavelength and power, from 2 (all four proteins) to 3 (jREX-GECO1) to 4 (mCherry, mPlum, tdTomato), and even up to 8 (tdTomato). We found that at sufficiently low excitation power P, the rate K often follows a quadratic power dependence, that turns into higher order dependence (K~Pα with α > 2) when the power surpasses a particular threshold P*. An optimum intensity for TPLM is close to the P*, because it provides the highest signal-to-background ratio and any further reduction of laser intensity would not improve the fluorescence/bleaching rate ratio. Additionally, one should avoid using wavelengths shorter than a particular threshold to avoid fast bleaching due to multiphoton ionization.


2018 ◽  
Vol 140 (8) ◽  
pp. 2897-2905 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martin Byrdin ◽  
Chenxi Duan ◽  
Dominique Bourgeois ◽  
Klaus Brettel

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