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Updated: Aug 15, 2025

Fluorescent Labeling of COS-7 Expressing SNAP-tag Fusion Proteins for Live Cell Imaging
Published on: May 17, 2010
The Evolution of SNAP-Tag Labels
Rudolf Dreyer1, Rueben Pfukwa1, Stefan Barth2,3
1Stellenbosch University, Department of Chemistry and Polymer Science, Private Bag X1, Matieland 7602, South Africa.
Abstract:
The conjugation of proteins with synthetic molecules can be conducted in many different ways. In this Perspective, we focus on tag-based techniques and specifically on the SNAP-tag technology. The SNAP-tag technology makes use of a fusion protein between a protein of interest and an enzyme tag that enables the actual conjugation reaction. The SNAP-tag is based on the O-alkylguanine-DNA alkyltransferase (AGT) enzyme and is optimized to react selectively with O-benzylguanine (BG) substrates. BG-containing dye derivatives have frequently been used to introduce a fluorescent tag to a specific protein. We believe that the site-specific conjugation of polymers to proteins can significantly benefit from the SNAP-tag technology. Especially, polymers synthesized via reversible deactivation radical polymerization allow for the facile introduction of a BG end group to enable SNAP-tag conjugation.
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