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Photoactivatable fluorescent proteins

Nature Reviews Molecular Cell Biology volume 6, pages 885–890 (2005)Cite this article

Abstract

The fluorescence characteristics of photoactivatable proteins can be controlled by irradiating them with light of a specific wavelength, intensity and duration. This provides unique possibilities for the optical labelling and tracking of living cells, organelles and intracellular molecules in a spatio-temporal manner. Here, we discuss the properties of the available photoactivatable fluorescent proteins and their potential applications.

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Figure 1: Spectral and photochemical properties of photoactivatable fluorescent proteins.
Figure 2: Three levels of spatio-temporal labelling with photoactivatable fluorescent proteins.
Figure 3: Criteria for selecting photoactivatable fluorescent proteins for a particular tracking experiment.

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Acknowledgements

The authors are supported by the European Commission Framework Program 6 and the Russian Academy of Sciences for the programme in Molecular and Cell Biology (K.A.L., D.M.C. and S.L.), and the National Institute of General Medical Sciences and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (V.V.V.).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. the Institute of Bioorganic Chemistry, Russian Academy of Sciences, Miklukho-Maklaya 16/10, Moscow, 117997, Russia

    Konstantin A. Lukyanov, Dmitry M. Chudakov & Sergey Lukyanov

  2. the Department of Pharmacology, University of Colorado at Denver and Health Sciences Center, Aurora, 80045, Colorado, USA

    Vladislav V. Verkhusha

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  1. Konstantin A. Lukyanov
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Correspondence to Konstantin A. Lukyanov or Vladislav V. Verkhusha.

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DATABASES

Swiss-Prot

GFP

Dronpa

Kaede

mEosFP

asulCP

FURTHER INFORMATION

Sergey Lukyanov's laboratory

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Lukyanov, K., Chudakov, D., Lukyanov, S. et al. Photoactivatable fluorescent proteins. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol 6, 885–890 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1038/nrm1741

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