Green fluorescent protein

Green florescent protein (GFP) is a protein that is found in moon jellyfish. It helps scientists look at cell molecules. There is another substance the is called RFP that serves the same purpose but is red, and is found in coral.

For GFP scientists have learned that if you take away one molecule it can change the whole color of the substance, along with if you add a molecule to the original substance it will also change the color. Scientists have made the colors cyan (ECFP) and pink (mRaspberry). The GFP is a florescent substance that is kind of like a highlighter.

Green Fluorescent Protein Media

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  Crystal jelly (Aequorea victoria)

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  3D reconstruction of confocal image of VEGF-overexpressing neural progenitors (red) and GFP-positive control neural progenitor cells (green) in the rat olfactory bulb. RECA-1-positive blood vessels - blue color.

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  The diversity of genetic mutations is illustrated by this San Diego beach scene drawn with living bacteria expressing 8 different colors of fluorescent proteins (derived from GFP and dsRed).

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  A palette of variants of GFP and DsRed.

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  Live lancelet (B. floridae) under a fluorescent microscope.

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  In the marine copepod Pontella mimocerami

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  Different proteins produce different fluorescent colors when exposed to ultraviolet light.

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  White light image, or image seen by the eye, of fluorescent proteins in image above.

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  E. coli colonies expressing fluorescent proteins.

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  GFP Movie showing entire structure and zoom in to fluorescent chromophore.