Destabilized Fluorescent Protein Vectors

In contrast to standard Living Colors fluorescent proteins, which are extremely stable, the Destabilized Fluorescent Protein Vectors (pFP-DR) display rapid turnover rates. This shorter half-life makes destabilized pFP-DR variants ideal for:

• Studies that require rapid reporter turnover
• Quantitative reporter assays and kinetic studies
• Accurately measuring the kinetics of transient mRNA transcription from regulated promoters
• Monitoring gene expression during development
• Characterizing cis-regulatory elements
• Analyzing the activity of a promoter or promoter/enhancer element inserted into the MCS located upstream of the reporter gene
• Developing stably transformed cell lines (because destabilized proteins can be expressed without excess buildup of the fluorescent protein)

The Destabilized Fluorescent Protein Vectors are promoterless vectors that encode rapidly degraded forms of ZsGreen1, DsRed-Express, and HcRed1. They include a portion of the mouse ornithine decarboxylase (MODC) gene, fused to the downstream end of the gene for the fluorescent protein. This region of MODC contains a PEST domain that targets the pFP-DR fusion protein for degradation, giving it a substantially shorter half-life (1). These destabilized variants can be used in cells from any organism that employs PEST sequence-mediated degradation pathways.

As with other fluorescent proteins, the pFP-DR vectors are human codon-optimized and retain the same spectral properties as our standard fluorescent proteins. Destabilized fluorescent proteins can be easily and immediately visualized by fluorescence microscopy or analyzed by flow cytometry.

References

1. Li, X. et al. (1998) J. Biol. Chem. 273(52):34970–34975.