Generation of a fast maturating red fluorescent protein by a combined approach of elongation mutagenesis and functional salvage screening

Fluorescent proteins that can be useful as indicators or reporters must have rapid maturation time, high quantum yield and photobleaching stability. A red fluorescent protein DsRed that has a high quantum yield and photostability has an innately slow maturation time when compared to other fluorescence proteins. In this study, we combined a functional salvage screen (FSS) and elongation mutagenesis to obtain a DsRed variant that maintained structural features closely linked with a high quantum yield and photostability and evolved to have a rapid maturation time. It is expected that the variant generated here, FmRed (fast maturating red fluorescent protein), will be widely used as an indicator or reporter because it maintained traits superior to that of the wild-type protein and also matured rapidly.