mCherry is derived from proteins originally isolated from Cnidarians (jelly fish, sea anemones and corals), and is used as a fluorescent tracer in trasfection and transgenic experiments.
The prototype for these fluorescent proteins is Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP), which is a ~27kD protein isolated originally from the jellyfish Aequoria victoria.
GFP was the basis of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded to Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien, specifically for "for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP".
GFP was shown to fluoresce on contact with molecular oxygen, requiring no other cofactors, and so can be expressed in fluorescent form in essentially any prokaryotic or eukaryotic cell.
The mCherry protein is derived from DsRed, a red fluorescent protein from so-called disc corals of the genus Discosoma.
DsRed is similar in size and properties to GFP, but, obviously, produces a red rather than a green fluorochrome.
The original DsRed was engineered extensively in the Tsien lab to prevent it from forming tetramers and dimers and to modify and improve the spectral properties (1-3).
Several further cycles of mutation, directed modification and evolutionary selection produced mCherry, which has an excitation maximum at 587 nm and and emission maximum at 610 nm (4).
Applications:Suitable for use in Western Blot, Immunohistochemistry and ImmunofluorescenceI/Immunocytochemistry.
