The current understanding of the role of plasma- membrane-associated clathrin suggests that clathrin-coated pits form at the sites of activated receptors and then, following internalization, the clathrin coat is rapidly shed. Utilizing total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIR-FM), we have documented linear lateral motion of cell-surface-associated dsRed-clathrin spots parallel to ...

Molecular biology critically depends upon the isolation of desired DNA sequences. Flow cytometry, with its capacity to interrogate and sort more than 50,000 cells/s, shows great potential to expedite clone characterization and isolation. Intrinsic heterogeneity of protein expression levels in cells limits the utility of single fluorescent reporters for cell-sorting. Here, we report a novel dual...

Reversible conformational changes have been photo-induced in the red fluorescent protein DsRed at low temperature by wavelength-selective laser irradiation. We have found two new fluorescent forms: a shifted-red (SR-) and a new green (G0-) form that absorb and emit, respectively, B14 nm to the red and B80 nm to the blue of the ‘mature’ red (R-) form present in an un-illuminated sample of DsRed....

The bacterium Herbaspirillum seropedicae is an endophytic diazotroph found in several plants, including economically important poaceous species. However, the mechanisms involved in the interaction between H. seropedicae and these plants are not completely characterized. We investigated the attachment of Herbaspirillum to maize roots and the invasion of the roots by this bacterium using H. serop...

A number of recently cloned chromoproteins homologous to the green fluorescent protein show a substantial bathochromic shift in absorption spectra. Compared with red fluorescent protein from Discosoma sp. (DsRed), mutants of these so-called far-red proteins exhibit a clear red shift in emission spectra as well. Here we report that a far-red chromoprotein from Goniopora tenuidens (gtCP) contains...

Introduction Aiming to image the presence of specific mRNAs by MRI, we have developed two intracellular MR contrast agents (CA) composed of a Gd-DOTA complex, a peptide nucleic acid (PNA) sequence and a cell penetrating peptide. One (dsRed CA) was designed to bind to mRNA of dsRed (red fluorescent protein originating from Discosoma coral) by its complementary peptide nucleic acid (PNA) sequence...

We have used the tetrameric nature of the fluorescent protein DsRed to cross-link F(1)F(O)-ATPase complexes incorporating a subunit gamma-DsRed fusion protein in vivo. Cells expressing such a fusion protein have impaired growth relative to control cells. Strikingly, fluorescence microscopy of these cells revealed aberrant mitochondrial morphology. Electron microscopy of cell sections revealed t...

Wheat blast caused by Magnaporthe oryzae pathotype Triticum (MoT), initially restricted to South America, is a global threat for wheat after spreading Asia in 2016 the introduction of contaminated seeds, raising question about transmission pathogen from seeds seedlings, process so far not well understood. We therefore studied relationship between seed infection and disease symptoms on seedlings...

Drought is a serious, worldwide problem for crop production and also affects yields of barley and wheat, together with other stressors such as frost, viral diseases, or fungal pathogens. Although a number of candidate genes have been identified by transcriptome approaches in recent years, only very few have been tested in functional assays for a beneficial effect on drought tolerance. Here, a t...