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We are excited about our new partnership with Allele Biotechnology which allows researchers to deposit plasmids containing the fluorescent protein mNeonGreen. This fluorescent protein joins mTFP1 and mWasabi, as fluorophores from Allele Biotechnology that now can be deposited at Addgene. What makes these fluorescent proteins unique and what can they be used for? Let’s take a look!

This post was contributed by guest blogger, Eugenia Rojas.

A question worthy of a PhD: How do you visualize protein turnover within a neuron?

For my PhD I studied a synaptic protein that is linked to neurodegeneration. The level of this protein is decreased in Alzheimer’s disease patient’s brains. However, it is not known why or how this happens. Therefore, I set out to study how protein turnover is regulated in neurons.

This post was contributed by Doug Richardson, Director of the Harvard Center for Biological Imaging and a Lecturer on Molecular and Cellular Biology at Harvard University.

No matter whether you are a sports photographer at the Super Bowl, a medical technologist taking an x-ray, or a biologist imaging the smallest structures of life; the key to a great image is contrast. The human visual system relies primarily on contrast to identify individual objects and perceive the world around us. Without contrast, objects simply vanish into noise.

This post was contributed by guest blogger, Luke Lavis, a Group Leader at the Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

Chemistry is dead, long live chemistry!

The discovery of green fluorescent protein (GFP) sparked a renaissance in biological imaging. Suddenly, cell biologists were no longer beholden to chemists and (expensive) synthetic fluorophores. Add a dash of DNA with an electrical jolt and cells become perfectly capable of synthesizing fluorophore fusions on their own. Subsequent advances in fluorescent proteins have replicated many of the properties once exclusive to small-molecules: red-shifted spectra, ion sensitivity, photoactivation, etc. These impressive advances lead to an obvious question: In this age of GFP and its ilk, why should cell biologists talk to chemists?

Since the first research applications of GFP were published in the 1990s, biologists have spent a lot of time making things glow. Chances are you’ve used a GFP derivative to conduct subcellular localization studies or make a reporter construct. Fluorescent proteins (FPs) are also the foundation of multiple important technologies, including FRET and optogenetics. Even though GFP has been so thoroughly characterized, it turns out this protein has a few more secrets - during a collaboration, members of Maureen Hanson’s and Rima Menassa's labs made the accidental discovery that laser treatment can photoconvert GFP from green to RED! This simple technique has been shown to work in plant, Drosophila and mammalian cells, and it may find wide use in biological research.