Stratagene's Vitality hrGFP (green fluorescent protein) mammalian expression vectors allow protein expression and subcellular localization studies similar to those using jellyfish (Aequorea victoria) GFP, with one important difference: Stratagene's hrGFP exhibits less toxicity in many mammalian cells.

Renilla reniformis, an Anthazoan sea pansy related to the jellyfish, produces a 238 amino-acid protein that has broader pH stability, more resistance to solvents, detergents, and proteases, and a 2.5-fold higher extinction coefficient than does the red-shifted Aequorea protein. While it has less than 30 percent homology to the Aequorea protein, the hrGFP chromophore is similarly derived from a post-translational cyclization of a tripeptide and also exhibits an emission maximum at just over 500 nm. For expression studies and vector construction, La Jolla-based Stratagene constructed a synthetic gene that uses codons preferred in highly-expressed human genes.


Stratagene's Vitality hrGFP vectors
Toxicity from Aequorea GFP leads to problems in many...

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