Excerpts

To make dendGFP suitable for protein labeling we generated a monomeric variant, named Dendra (from Dendronephthya sp., red activatable), using mutagenesis strategy suggested for monomerization of green fluorescent protein Azami-Green. In contrast to a recently developed monomeric version of EosFP, called mEosFP, Dendra completely matures at 37 °C in both bacterial and mammalian cells. Bacterial colonies expressing Dendra can be irreversibly converted from green to red fluorescent states by irradiation with a 405-nm light using a fluorescent stereomicroscope. For purified Dendra, we achieved a 350-fold increase of red fluorescence and a fivefold decrease of green fluorescence resulting in a 1,400-fold contrast between the ground and activated states.