[The role of quarternary structure in fluorescent protein stability]

Tsitologiia. 2005;47(11):1017-27.
[Article in Russian]

Abstract

The stability of fluorescent proteins (FPs) is of great importance for their use as reporters in studies of gene expression, protein dynamics and localization in cell. A comparative analysis of conformational stability of fluorescent proteins, having different association state was done. The list of studied proteins includes EGFP (monomer of green fluorescent protein, GFP), zFP506 (tetramer GFP), mRFP1 and "dimer2" (monomer and dimmer of red fluorescent protein), DsRed1 (red tetramer). The character of fluorescence intensity changes induced by guanidine hydrochloride (GdnHCl) of these proteins differs significantly. Green tetramer zFP506 has been shown to be more stable than green monomer EGFP, red dimmer "dimer2" has been shown to be less stable than red tetramer DsRed1, while red monomer mRFP1 has been shown to be practically as stable as tetramer DsRedl. It is concluded that the quaternary structure, being an important stabilizing factor, does not represent the only circumstance dictating the dramatic variations between fluorescent proteins in their conformational stability.

Publication types

  • Comparative Study
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Amino Acid Sequence
  • Dimerization
  • Escherichia coli / metabolism
  • Fluorescent Dyes / metabolism
  • Green Fluorescent Proteins / chemistry
  • Green Fluorescent Proteins / metabolism*
  • Guanidine / pharmacology
  • Luminescent Proteins / metabolism
  • Molecular Sequence Data
  • Protein Conformation
  • Protein Structure, Quaternary / physiology*
  • Recombinant Proteins / biosynthesis
  • Recombinant Proteins / chemistry
  • Recombinant Proteins / metabolism
  • Red Fluorescent Protein
  • Sequence Alignment

Substances

  • Fluorescent Dyes
  • Luminescent Proteins
  • Recombinant Proteins
  • enhanced green fluorescent protein
  • fluorescent protein 583
  • Green Fluorescent Proteins
  • Guanidine