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Beyond GFP: DsRed and PA-GFP

Red fluorescent proteins, Photoactivatable fluorescent proteins

Nature Cell Biology volume 11, pages S21–S22 (2009)Cite this article

Blue, cyan and yellow fluorescent proteins were quickly obtained by modifying GFP, but variants emitting in the orange and red spectra (which would allow multicolour imaging experiments and be less phototoxic than other colours owing to their longer excitation wavelengths) remained elusive. A breakthrough occurred in 1999, when Matz et al. proposed that the fluorescent property of GPF-like proteins might not necessarily be linked to bioluminescence and searched for them in non-bioluminescent Anthozoa species — reef corals that exhibit bright fluorescent colours. This led to the cloning of the first red fluorescent protein (known as DsRed, for Discosoma sp. red). Injection of mRNAs encoding DsRed or a green variant into blastomeres of Xenopus laevis embryos revealed regions that were marked with individual proteins (red or green) or both proteins (yellow) at the tadpole stage. This represented the first double-labelling experiment.

...the next day the sample had turned red.

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  1. Associate Editor, Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology,

    Francesca Cesari

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  1. Francesca Cesari
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Cesari, F. Beyond GFP: DsRed and PA-GFP. Nat Cell Biol 11 (Suppl 1), S21–S22 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1038/ncb1935

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