Green Fluorescent Protein: Difference between revisions
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The uses of GFP are also expanding into the world of art and commerce. Artist Eduardo Kac has created a fluorescent green rabbit by engineering GFP into its cells. Breeders are exploring GFP as a way to create unique fluorescent plants and fishes. GFP has been added to rats, mice, frogs, flies, worms, and countless other living things. Of course, these engineered plants and animals are still controversial, and are spurring important dialogue on the safety and morality of genetic engineering. | The uses of GFP are also expanding into the world of art and commerce. Artist Eduardo Kac has created a fluorescent green rabbit by engineering GFP into its cells. Breeders are exploring GFP as a way to create unique fluorescent plants and fishes. GFP has been added to rats, mice, frogs, flies, worms, and countless other living things. Of course, these engineered plants and animals are still controversial, and are spurring important dialogue on the safety and morality of genetic engineering. | ||
== Improving GFP == | |||
GFP is amazingly useful for studying living cells, and scientists are making it even more useful. They are engineering GFP molecules that fluoresce different colors. Scientists can now make blue fluorescent proteins, and yellow fluorescent proteins, and a host of others. The trick is to make small mutations that change the stability of the chromophore. Thousands of different variants have been tried, and you can find several successes in the PDB. Scientists are also using GFP to create biosensors: molecular machines that sense the levels of ions or pH, and then report the results by fluorescing in characteristic ways. The molecule shown here, from PDB entry [[1kys]], is a blue fluorescent protein that has been modified to sense the level of zinc ions. When zinc, shown here in red, binds to the modified chromophore, shown here it bright blue, the protein fluoresces twice as brightly, creating a visible signal that is easily detected. | |||
