Background/Target Information

The jellyfish Aequorea victoria contains green fluorescent protein (GFP) that emits light in the bioluminescence reaction of the animal. GFP has been used widely as a reporter protein for gene expression in eukaryotic and prokaryotic organinsms, and as a protein tag in cell culture and in multicellular organisms. As a fusion tag, GFP can be used to localize proteins, to study their movement or to research the dynamics of the subcelluclar compartments where these proteins are targeted. GFP technology has revealed considerable new insights in the physiological activities of living cells. GFP is a 27 kDa monomeric protein, which autocatalytically forms a fluorescent pigment. The wild type protein absorbs blue light (maximally at 395nm) and emits green light (peak emission 508nm) in the absence of additional proteins, substrates, or co-factors. GFP fluorescence is stable, species independent and is suitable for a variety of applications. GFP has been used etensively as a fluorescent tag to monitor gene expressin and protein localization. Moreover, other applications for GFP include its use in assessing protein protein interactions in the yeast two hybrid system, and in measuring distances between proteins in fluorescence energy transfer (FRET) experiments.