Description
mCherry is a monomeric red fluorescent protein (mRFP) belonging to the mFruits family which is brighter and more photostable compared to the first-generation mRFP1, making them ideal for fluorescence microscopy (1). mCherry has an excitation maximum at 587 nm and an emission maximum at 610 nm. mCherry protein was derived from DsRed, a red fluorescent protein from the coral Discosoma (disc anemone) (2). The red chromophore of DsRed has a similar topology to GFP, the green fluorescent protein isolated from the jellyfish Aequorea Victoria, but has extended pi-electron conjugation resulting in red-shifted absorbance and emission (3). mCherry is 236 amino acids (aa) in length with a theoretical molecular weight of 28 kDa and has a crystal structure with the chromophore forming a central helix shielded within an eleven-stranded beta-barrel (3).
mCherry can be used as a long-wavelength hetero-FRET (fluorescence resonance energy transfer) acceptor and probe for homoFRET experiments given its high peak molar absorptivity, folding efficiency, and superior spectral properties (4). Additionally, because mCherry does not interfere with other plasmids or alter the growth of Legionella species during intracellular growth, it can be used for constitutive gene expression in a variety of gram-negative bacterial species (5). For example, a plasmid developed to constitutively express mCherry under the Ptac promoter has been used in several Legionella species including L. pneumophila, the causative agent of Legionnaires' disease (5).
References
1. Shaner, N. C., Steinbach, P. A., & Tsien, R. Y. (2005). A guide to choosing fluorescent proteins. Nature Methods, 2(12), 905-909. doi:10.1038/nmeth819
2. Bevis, B. J., & Glick, B. S. (2002). Rapidly maturing variants of the Discosoma red fluorescent protein (DsRed). Nature Biotechnology, 20(1), 83-87. https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt0102-83
3. Wall, M. A., Socolich, M., & Ranganathan, R. (2000). The structural basis for red fluorescence in the tetrameric GFP homolog DsRed. Nature Structural Biology, 7(12), 1133-1138. https://doi.org/10.1038/81992
4. Akrap, N., Seidel, T., & Barisas, B. G. (2010). Forster distances for fluorescence resonant energy transfer between mCherry and other visible fluorescent proteins. Analytical Biochemistry, 402(1), 105-106. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ab.2010.03.026
5. Gebhardt, M. J., Jacobson, R. K., & Shuman, H. A. (2017). Seeing red; the development of pON.mCherry, a broad-host range constitutive expression plasmid for Gram-negative bacteria. Plos One, 12(3), e0173116. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0173116
Bioinformatics
| Alternate Names |
- DSRED
- red fluorescent protein mCherry
- Red Fluoroscent Protein
|
