Aequorea's secrets revealed: New fluorescent proteins with unique properties for bioimaging and biosensing

Gerard G. Lambert (1) , Hadrien Depernet (2) , Guillaume Gotthard (2) , Darrin T. Schultz (3, 4) , Isabelle Navizet (5) , Talley Lambert (6, 7) , Stephen R. Adams (8) , Albertina Torreblanca-Zanca (1) , Meihua Chu (1) , Daphne S. Bindels (9) , Vincent Levesque (10) , Jennifer Nero Moffat (11) , Anya Salih (12) , Antoine Royant (13, 2) , Nathan C. Shaner (1)

1 Neuro - UC San Diego - Department of Neurosciences [Univ California San Diego]
2 ESRF - European Synchrotron Radiation Facility
3 UC Santa Cruz - University of California [Santa Cruz]
4 MBARI - Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute
5 MSME - Laboratoire Modélisation et Simulation Multi-Echelle
6 Department of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School
7 Department of Systems Biology, Harvard Medical School
8 Department of Pharmacology, University of California San Diego School of Medicine
9 Nikon Imaging Center, University of California San Diego
10 Birch Aquarium at Scripps
11 Birch Aquarium at Scripps
12 Western Sydney University
13 IBS - UMR 5075 - Institut de biologie structurale

Using mRNA sequencing and de novo transcriptome assembly, we identified, cloned, and characterized 9 previously undiscovered fluorescent protein (FP) homologs from Aequorea victoria and a related Aequorea species, with most sequences highly divergent from A. vic-toria green fluorescent protein (avGFP). Among these FPs are the brightest green fluorescent protein (GFP) homolog yet characterized and a reversibly photochromic FP that responds to UV and blue light. Beyond green emitters, Aequorea species express purple-and blue-pigmented chromoproteins (CPs) with absorbances ranging from green to far-red, including 2 that are photoconvertible. X-ray crystallography revealed that Aequorea CPs contain a chemically novel chromophore with an unexpected crosslink to the main polypep-tide chain. Because of the unique attributes of several of these newly discovered FPs, we expect that Aequorea will, once again, give rise to an entirely new generation of useful probes for bioimaging and biosensing.

Domains: Genomics [q-bio.GN]; Structural Biology [q-bio.BM]

Gerard G. Lambert, Hadrien Depernet, Guillaume Gotthard, Darrin T. Schultz, Isabelle Navizet, et al.. Aequorea's secrets revealed: New fluorescent proteins with unique properties for bioimaging and biosensing. PLoS Biology, 2020, 18 (11), pp.e3000936. ⟨10.1371/journal.pbio.3000936⟩. ⟨hal-03015356⟩