Virtuelle (Nano) Welten: PDB Molecule of the Month 42: Green Fluorescent Protein

Improving GFP

GFP is amazingly useful for studying living cells, and scientists are making it even more useful. They are engineering GFP molecules that fluoresce different colors. Scientists can now make blue fluorescent proteins, and yellow fluorescent proteins, and a host of others. The trick is to make small mutations that change the stability of the chromophore. Thousands of different variants have been tried, and you can find several successes in the PDB. Scientists are also using GFP to create biosensors: molecular machines that sense the levels of ions or pH, and then report the results by fluorescing in characteristic ways. The molecule shown here, from PDB entry 1kys, is a blue fluorescent protein that has been modified to sense the level of zinc ions. When zinc, shown here in red, binds to the modified chromophore, shown here it bright blue, the protein fluoresces twice as brightly, creating a visible signal that is easily detected.

Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP)

Improving GFP