Use of living colors in biology

used in modern cell biology Among the living colors, green flourescent protein (GFP) is the most widely used in modern cell biology

Jellyfish Aequoria victoria, one of the oldest species on earth, is the source GFP

Osamu Shimomura was the first person to isolate GFP from the jellyfish in the year 1962. He also found out the mechanism of fluorescence.

Martin Chalfie

Roger Tsien

The jellyfish produces green bioluminesence from small photoorgans located on its umbrella There are four steps how it fluoresces in nature Calcium binds to photoprotein aequorin Aequorin emits blue light upon calcium binding GFP absorbs blue light GFP emits green light

p-hydroxybenzylidine-imidazolidone

Spectrum of GFP The excitation spectrum of native GFP from A. victoria (blue) has two     excitation maxima at 395 nm and at 470 nm. The fluorescence emission  spectrum (green) has a peak at 509 nm and a shoulder at 540 nm.                                           

Discovery of red fluorescence protein (RFP) Sergey Lukyanov first found a GFP-like protein in deep sea corals, Anthozoa in 1991. RFP GFP

Cancer

Localization using GFP Nucleus Nuclear membrane Mitochondria Mitotic spindle Spindle pole body Bud neck

Use of multiple colors

LacO array Step1 LACI GFP Step2 Step3 Step 4

TetO array Step1 TETR RFP Step2 Step3 Step 4

Douglas Prasher