Engineering color variants of green fluorescent protein (GFP) for thermostability, pH-sensitivity, and improved folding kinetics

A number of studies have been conducted to improve chromophore maturation, folding kinetics, thermostability, and other traits of green fluorescent protein (GFP). However, no specific work aimed at improving the thermostability of the yellow fluorescent protein (YFP) and of the pH-sensitive, yet thermostable color variants of GFP has so far been done. The protein variants reported in this study were improved through rational multiple site-directed mutagenesis of GFP (ASV) by introducing up to ten point mutations including the mutations near and at the chromophore region. Therefore, we report the development and characterization of fast folder and thermo-tolerant green variant (FF-GFP), and a fast folder thermostable yellow fluorescent protein (FFTS-YFP) endowed with remarkably improved thermostability and folding kinetics. We demonstrate that the fluorescence intensity of this yellow variant is not affected by heating at 75 °C. Moreover, we have developed a pH-unresponsive cyan variant AcS-CFP, which has potential use as part of in vivo imaging irrespective of intracellular pH. The combined improved properties make these fluorescent variants ideal tools to study protein expression and function under different pH environments, in mesophiles and thermophiles. Furthermore, coupling of the FFTS-YFP and AcS-CFP could potentially serve as an ideal tool to perform functional analysis of live cells by multicolor labeling.