Cherry (mCherry, DsRed, Discosoma)

mCherry is derived from proteins originally isolated from Cnidarians (jelly fish, sea anemones and corals), and is used as a fluorescent tracer in trasfection and transgenic experiments. The prototype for these fluorescent proteins is Green Fluorescent Protein (GFP), which is a ~27kD protein isolated originally from the jellyfish Aequoria victoria. GFP was the basis of the 2008 Nobel Prize in Chemistry, awarded to Osamu Shimomura, Martin Chalfie and Roger Tsien, specifically for "for the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP". GFP was shown to fluoresce on contact with...