Fluorescence imaging of biological samples stands to benefit greatly by a RIKEN discovery of a fluorescent protein derived from a Japanese jellyfish that maintains its brightness even when illuminated by strong light.
September 30, 2022
Fluorescence imaging of biological samples stands to benefit greatly by a RIKEN discovery of a fluorescent protein derived from a Japanese jellyfish that maintains its brightness even when illuminated by strong light.
Proteins that give off green light when illuminated are powerful tools for imaging fine structures within living cells. Researchers can attach such fluorescent proteins to target structures they are interested in, which then light up when blue light is shone on them.
However, researchers find themselves in a bind—they want to use as little fluorescent protein as possible so that it doesn’t interfere with normal cellular processes, but that necessitates using strong illumination in order to obtain high-quality images. The trouble is that when strong light is shone on a fluorescent protein, its brightness drops off rapidly due to a process known as photobleaching.
