New tools for in vivo fluorescence tagging

Engineering of fluorescent proteins continues to produce new tools for in vivo studies. The current selection contains brighter, monomeric, spectral variants that will facilitate multiplex imaging and FRET, and a collection of optical highlighter proteins that might replace photoactivatable-GFP. These new highlighter proteins, which include proteins that have photoswitchable fluorescence characteristics and a protein whose fluorescence can be repeatedly turned on and off, should simplify refined analyses of protein dynamics and kinetics. Fluorescent protein-based systems have also been developed to allow facile detection of protein-protein interactions in planta. In addition, new tags in the form of peptides that bind fluorescent ligands and quantum dots offer the prospect of overcoming some of the limitations of fluorescent proteins such as excessive size and insufficient brightness.