Small molecule fluorescent probes for protein labeling and their application to cell‐based imaging (including Fl As H etc.)

Abstract

The fluorescent imaging of live cells has benefited tremendously from the development of new types of highly specific protein reagents. Three broad approaches to introducing fluorescent proteins into live cells have been described; ex vivo labeling followed by the introduction of the labeled proteins into cells, heterologous expression of inherently fluorescent proteins as fusions to other proteins and heterologous expression of a tagged protein followed by labeling with a reagent that reacts specifically with the tag. This last approach will be the subject of this review, and both the principles of the method and some applications will be described.