From: Robert J. Bradbury (bradbury@aeiveos.com)
Date: Sun May 26 2002 - 19:11:15 MDT
On Sun, 26 May 2002, Smigrodzki, Rafal wrote:
> ### If I remember correctly, GFP and related proteins (yellow, orange) are
> not supposed to glow on their own - they only fluoresce under UV light.
Ah yes, perhaps that is right.
According to:
The Molecular Structure of Green Fluorescent Protein
http://www-bioc.rice.edu/Bioch/Phillips/Papers/gfpbio.html
Its peak absorbance is at 395 nm which is near UV and its emission
peak is 508 nm (green). The reason that the bunnies didn't glow
green is because they were probably missing the chemiluminescent
protein aequorin (which glows blue to drive the GFP when stimulated
with calcium ions).
So, to get a green bunny you either need to add aequorin and calcium
ions to the GFP system (perhaps active in muscles where Ca ions are
pumped around) -- or use luciferin and luciferase, from the firefly,
instead. That pair seems to only require ATP.
I happen to know someone who has the gene for luciferase.
If I make a glow-in-the-dark bunny, what do I get?
Robert
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