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Reporter Genes

Reporter Genes

Reporter genes are a type of protein-coding gene that are often tagged to a gene of interest. Once inside a target cell, reporter genes usually produce visually identifiable characteristics like fluorescence and luminescence when expressed along with the gene of interest. Thus, reporter genes “report” the presence or absence of genes of interest in an organism, determine the gene expression pattern, or track the physical location of a DNA segment or protein in the cell.

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Jul 8, 2025

Engineering 'Golden' Fluorescence by Selective Pressure Incorporation of Non-canonical Amino Acids and Protein Analysis by Mass Spectrometry and Fluorescence

Engineering 'Golden' Fluorescence by Selective Pressure Incorporation of Non-canonical Amino Acids and Protein Analysis by Mass Spectrometry and Fluorescence

Published on: April 27, 2018

A monomeric StayGold fluorescent protein.

Esther Ivorra-Molla¹, Dipayan Akhuli^1,2, Martin B L McAndrew^3,4

¹Centre for Mechanochemical Cell Biology and Division of Biomedical Sciences, Warwick Medical School, University of Warwick, Coventry, UK.

Nature Biotechnology

|December 11, 2023

Summary

Researchers developed mStayGold, a monomeric version of the bright and photostable StayGold fluorescent protein. This advancement overcomes limitations of the original dimer, enabling broader applications for fluorescent protein tagging.

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Area of Science:

Biochemistry
Structural Biology
Molecular Biology

Background:

StayGold is a highly bright and photostable fluorescent protein.
Its utility as a fluorescent tag is limited by its natural dimeric form.

Purpose of the Study:

To determine the structure of StayGold.
To engineer a monomeric derivative of StayGold with retained fluorescence properties.

Main Methods:

X-ray crystallography to determine the 1.6 Å structure of StayGold.
Protein engineering to create a monomeric variant.

Main Results:

The 1.6 Å crystal structure of StayGold was elucidated.
A monomeric derivative, mStayGold, was successfully generated.
mStayGold preserves the brightness and photostability of the original StayGold protein.

Conclusions:

The structural insights enabled the engineering of a monomeric fluorescent protein.
mStayGold offers an improved alternative to StayGold for applications requiring monomeric fluorescent tags.