PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Lambert, Gerard G.
AU  - Depernet, Hadrien
AU  - Gotthard, Guillaume
AU  - Schultz, Darrin T.
AU  - Navizet, Isabelle
AU  - Lambert, Talley
AU  - Bindels, Daphne S.
AU  - Levesque, Vincent
AU  - Moffatt, Jennifer N.
AU  - Salih, Anya
AU  - Royant, Antoine
AU  - Shaner, Nathan C.
TI  - <em>Aequorea victoria’s</em> secrets
AID  - 10.1101/677344
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 677344
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/06/28/677344.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/06/28/677344.full
AB  - Using mRNA-Seq and de novo transcriptome assembly, we identified, cloned and characterized nine previously undiscovered fluorescent protein (FP) homologs from Aequorea victoria and a related Aequorea species, with most sequences highly divergent from avGFP. Among these FPs are the brightest 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 two that are photoconvertible. X-ray crystallography revealed that Aequorea CPs contain a chemically novel chromophore with an unexpected crosslink to the main polypeptide 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.