How to glow in the dark
Fly larvae with fluorescence
Image Source
I wanted to know a bit more about this green florescent protein, that is one of our play mates in the MS2 labs. It basically make our RNA glow if it folds as it should. How well, gets read out from how intensive it glows.
For odd reasons, I jumped the first WIKI link, and went to the next. This landed me on a special page with an awesome description.
The story about the Green Fluorescent Protein
I read the whole thing. And I couldn’t shake the feeling that it kind of reminded me of something. So I decided to check the author. And there he was, David Goodsell, who made the most beautiful hand drawn images of the cell and its machinery. I earlier made an introduction to his book:
But the story gets even better. This Green Glowing Protein is the protein of the month. This means that there has basically been written an article on a protein each month, for the protein data base. So now there is a treasure trove of fine small protein stories, which is practically the natural extension of Goodsell’s book about the workings of the cell.
This site holds the rest of the stories:
Hereby the tip is passed on. Enjoy!
For the further interested
I also found an article which describes both the glow in the dark protein and the MS2 hairpin we use. And how they were discovered and made to work together.