Question: Purple fluorescent protein

[Hollystark]

My friend talked to someone who works for a biotech company near us, who was selling axolotls that fluoresced purple (though not brightly). He called them NFP, which as best I can tell from googling just means novel fluorescent protein and refers to any fluorescent protein other than GFP.

My friend is very enthusiastic but isn't necessarily likely to think critically about what they are hearing and some of what they described just sounded sketch. I didn't talk to the guy directly. I could if it comes to it, though, they are in my city.

Anybody know anything?

 

[Bette]

News to me.... It doesn't really surprise me though. Perhaps someone else has heard about it?

 

[rachel1]

Flouresent proteins are used as markers in biology, so there is constant research to develop new colors. A wider spectrum of colors opens up new applications in research. I found this chart of flourescent marker proteins available in 2004, and both deep blue and far red could potentially be considered purple.
In flourescent zebra fish, green, blue, purple, red, pink and orange are available commercially in the US. Google Glo-fish. It's not surprising at all.

 

[Hollystark]

Cool, thank you! I also emailed the axolotl person at my university's bio lab and she just responded that, "Elly Tanaka has created a cherry fluorescent animal line. I worked with them in Germany and grafted Cherry onto GFP and vice versa."

So cool rather than sketch!