Living Colors mCherry has been successfully fused to many proteins and widely used for quantitative imaging techniques including fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET). mCherry is one of the Fruit Fluorescent Proteins, which were developed in Dr. Roger Tsien’s lab (1–3) by directed mutagenesis of mRFP1, a monomeric mutant of DsRed (4).
tdTomato
Living Colors tdTomato (also developed in Dr. Roger Tsien’s lab) is a genetic fusion of two copies of the dTomato gene (4) which was specifically designed for low aggregation. Its tandem dimer structure plays an important role in the exceptional brightness of tdTomato. Because tdTomato forms an intramolecular dimer, it behaves like a monomer, and has been used successfully for N- and C- terminal fusions. tdTomato’s emission wavelength (581 nm) and brightness make it ideal for live animal imaging studies. tdTomato has been detected as deep as 1 cm below the surface (5).
DsRed-Express2 & DsRed-Express
Living Colors DsRed-Express is a rapidly maturing variant of Discosoma sp. red fluorescent protein with mutations that enhance its solubility, reduce its green emission, and accelerate its maturation (6). DsRed-Express2 has even higher solubility, and was designed to be better suited for cell and stem cell applications (7).
DsRed-Monomer
Living Colors DsRed-Monomer is a true monomeric mutant of our red fluorescent protein from Discosoma sp. reef coral, which makes it the optimal choice for use as a red fluorescent fusion tag. DsRed-Monomer has been expressed as a fusion with a large panel of diverse proteins with diverse functions and subcellular locations. The localization of the resulting tagged protein was monitored, and all the tested proteins localized properly.
Dual-Color, Stable Cell Lines
With the pDsRed-Monomer-Hyg-N1/C1 and pAcGFP1-Hyg-N1/C1 vectors, you can establish stable cell lines coexpressing AcGFP1 and DsRed-Monomer fusion proteins, by selecting with both hygromycin and neomycin. Target genes of interest can be easily transferred from our standard pDsRed-Monomer-N1/C1 and pAcGFP1-N1/C1 vectors containing the neomycin selection cassette into the corresponding hygromycin-resistant (Hygr) N1 or C1 vectors, because the two vector sets contain identical multiple cloning sites.
DsRed2 & AsRed2
Living Colors DsRed2 and AsRed2 retain the benefits typical of red fluorescent proteins, such as a high signal-to-noise ratio and distinct spectral properties for use in multicolor labeling experiments.
mStrawberry
Living Colors mStrawberry is a Fruit Fluorescent Protein which was developed in Dr. Roger Tsien’s lab (1-3) by directed mutagenesis of mRFP1, a monomeric mutant of DsRed (4). It's well-tolerated as a fusion protein in a wide variety of applications.
