Genetic tags for labelling live cells: gap junctions and beyond
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Updated: Sep 11, 2026

Single-cell Microinjection for Cell Communication Analysis
Published on: February 26, 2017
1Dept of Cell Biology, The Scripps Research Institute, 10550 North Torrey Pines Road, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA. falk@scripps.edu
Abstract:
The availability of green fluorescent protein (GFP) as a tracer for observing proteins in living cells has revolutionized cell biology and spurred an intensive search for GFP variants with novel characteristics, additional autofluorescent proteins and alternative techniques of protein labelling. Two recent studies - one on tagging with tetracysteine motifs and labelling with biarsenic fluorophores of different colours, and the other on GFP tagging and fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP) - show how membrane channels are added and removed from gap junctions by using different fluorescent tags to distinguish between newly synthesized and older protein populations.
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