title: A novel mutation which enhances the fluorescence of green fluorescent protein at high temperatures.
abstract: Green fluorescent protein (GFP) from Aequorea victoria is widely used as a marker of gene expression and protein localization in living cells from prokaryotes to eukaryotes. However, the total fluorescent signal from wild-type GFP is very weak when expressed in cells cultured at 37 degrees C compared to 30 degrees C or below. This characteristic makes GFP poorly suited to use as a marker in mammalian cells. Here we describe a new variant of GFP which carries a substitution of Ser147 to Pro (S147P GFP) and which emits a stronger fluorescent signal than the wild-type GFP at high temperature. When S147P is combined with the Ser65 to Thr mutation (S65T GFP), the resulting double mutant emits fluorescence which is several-fold stronger than GFP with a single S65T modification in both bacterial or mammalian cells. This S147P mutation should be useful for constructing new GFP variants which stably emit strong fluorescence at a wide range of culturing temperatures.
authors.affiliation: Research and Education Center for Genetic Information, Nara Institute of Science and Technology, Japan.
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Kimata
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Iwaki
authors.forename: C R
authors.initials: CR
authors.lastname: Lim
authors.forename: K
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Kohno
mesh_terms: D005453:Fluorescence; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins; D006358:Hot Temperature; D008164:Luminescent Proteins / Q000235:genetics / Q000378:metabolism*; D016296:Mutagenesis
chemical_list: D008164:Luminescent Proteins; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins