045847

Mouse Anti-mCherry

mCherry protein is derived from a natural product, DsRed, originally isolated as a red fluorescent protein from the coral of the genus Discosoma (1). As with other natural fluorescent proteins of Cnidarians (jelly fish, sea anemones and corals), the natural form of the protein forms stable tetramers in vivo. DsRed was engineered to improve its spectral properties and also prevent multimerization in the lab of Roger Tsien, where much work on fluorescent proteins was performed (2). Several further cycles of mutation, directed modification and evolutionary selection produced mCherry, which is monomeric and has an excitation maximum at 587nm and emission maximum at 610nm (3). The protein is widely used as a fluorescent tracer in transfection, transgenic, photobleaching and FRET type experiments. The prototype for these fluorescent proteins is Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP), which is a ~27kD protein isolated originally from the jellyfish Aequoria victoria (4). The mCherry protein is similar in size and general structural properties to GFP (5,6), but, obviously, produces a red rather than a green fluorochrome.