Miyawaki Atsushi, Nagai Takeharu, Mizuno Hideaki
Laboratory for Cell Function Dynamics, Advanced Technology Development Group, Brain Science Institute, RIKEN, 2-1 Hirosawa,Wako-city, Saitama, 351-0198 Japan.
Adv Biochem Eng Biotechnol. 2005;95:1-15. doi: 10.1007/b102208.
Green fluorescent protein from the jellyfish Aequorea victora (GFP) and GFP-like proteins from Anthozoa species encode light-absorbing chromophores intrinsically within their respective protein sequences. Recent studies have made progress in obtaining bright variants of these proteins which develop chromophores quickly and efficiently, as well as novel fluorescent proteins that photoactivate or photoconvert, i.e., become fluorescent or change colors upon illumination at specific wavelengths. Also, monomeric versions of these proteins have been engineered for fusion protein applications. Simple GFP variants and circularly permuted GFP variants have been used to develop fluorescent probes that sense physiological signals such as membrane potential and concentrations of free calcium. Further molecular characterization of the structure and maturation of these proteins is in progress, aimed at providing information for rational design of variants with desired fluorescence properties.
来自维多利亚多管发光水母的绿色荧光蛋白（GFP）以及来自珊瑚纲物种的类GFP蛋白在其各自的蛋白质序列中内在地编码吸光发色团。最近的研究在获得这些能快速高效形成发色团的蛋白质的明亮变体，以及光激活或光转换的新型荧光蛋白（即在特定波长光照下变得发荧光或改变颜色）方面取得了进展。此外，这些蛋白质的单体形式已被改造用于融合蛋白应用。简单的GFP变体和环状排列的GFP变体已被用于开发可感知生理信号（如膜电位和游离钙浓度）的荧光探针。对这些蛋白质的结构和成熟过程的进一步分子表征正在进行中，目的是为合理设计具有所需荧光特性的变体提供信息。
