EXPRESSION OF TRUNCATED AND FUSED GREEN FLUORESCENT PROTEIN GENES ANDANALYSIS OF THEIR PROPERTIES

The green fluorescent protein (GFP) of the jellyfish Aequorea victoria is an unusual protein with strong visible absorbance and fluorescence from a chromophore, which is generated by cyclization and oxidation o f the protein's own Ser-Tyr-Gly sequence at position 65-67. The mutant of Ser65 to Thr gives fluorescence intensity sixfold greater than tha t of the wild type. Several expression vectors containing different tr uncated lengths or chimeric gfp genes were introduced. The relationshi p between the structure and fluorescence properties of GFP was discuss ed.