| - | <applet load='1ema' size='450' frame='true' align='right' scene='Green_Fluorescent_Protein/1ema_gfp_default/2' caption='Green fluorescent protein complex with peptide-derived chromophore ([[1ema]])' /> | + | <Structure load='Sele.pdb' size='400' frame='true' align='right' caption='CheW CheA CheY' scene='User:Luis_E_Ramirez-Tapia/Sandbox_4/Initial/1' /> |
| - | '''Green fluorescent protein (GFP)''' is a [[bioluminescent]] polypeptide consisting of 238 residues isolated from the body of [[Aequorea victoria]] jellyfish.<ref name="PDBsum">[http://www.ebi.ac.uk/thornton-srv/databases/cgi-bin/pdbsum/GetPage.pl?pdbcode=1ema&template=main.html], Protein Database (PDBsum): 1ema. European Bioinformatics (EBI); 2009.</ref> GFP converts the blue chemiluminescent of [[aequorin]] in the jellyfish into green fluorescent light.<ref name="Yang">[http://www-bioc.rice.edu/Bioch/Phillips/Papers/gfpbio.html], Yang F, Moss LG, Phillips GN Jr. 1996. The molecular structure of green fluorescent protein. Biotechnology. 14: 1246-1251. DOI 10.1038/nbt1096-1246.</ref> It remains unclear why these jellyfish use fluorescence, why green is better than blue, or why they produce a separate protein for green fluorescence as opposed to simply mutating the present aequorin to shift its wavelength,<ref name="Tsien" /> but in the laboratory, GFP can be incorporated into a variety of biological systems in order to function as a marker protein. Since its discovery in 1962, GFP has become a significant contributor to the research of monitoring gene expression, localization, mobility, traffic, interactions between various membrane and cytoplasmic proteins, as well as many others.<ref name="Haldar">[http://www.springerlink.com/content/wvg513864266g77n/fulltext.pdf], Haldar S, Chattopadhyay A. 2009. The green journey. J Fluoresc. 19:1-2. DOI 10.1007/s10895-008-0455-6; biographical background on [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Prasher Douglas Prasher], [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Chalfie Martin Chalfie] and [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Tsien Roger Tsien].</ref>
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