Sandbox reserve 103

GFP converts the blue chemiluminescent of aequorin in the jellyfish into green fluorescent light.[1] 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,[2] 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.[3]

References

Additional Resources

• For additional information, see: Colored & Bioluminescent Proteins
• First Glance
• PDBsum: 1ema
• RCSB PDB 1ema
• OCA
• UniProt: P42212
• Scop: P42212
• CATH: 1emaA00
• Pfam: PF01353
• InterPro: IPR000786
• GFP featured at the Molecule of the Month series of tutorials by David Goodsell.
• Inside green fluorescent protein - editor's summary that accompanied structural detail of GFP chromophore on the cover of Nature.