De novo design of orthogonal far-red, orange, and green fluorophore-binding proteins for multiplexed imaging.
Tran, L., Klein, S., Juergens, D., Sharma, S., Decarreau, J., Lee, G.R., Wang, Y., Chen, W., Bera, A.K., Kang, A., Woods, J., Joyce, E., Vafeados, D.K., Roullier, N., Li, X., Liu, B., Bo, Y., Muratspahic, E., Brown, T.A., Grimm, J.B., Patel, R., Lavis, L.D., Mahamid, J., An, L., Baker, D.(2026) Science : eaeb0822-eaeb0822
- PubMed: 42461986 Search on PubMed
- DOI: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.aeb0822
- Primary Citation Related Structures: 
11MQ, 9PVL - PubMed Abstract: 
Fluorescent proteins and small-molecule dyes offer complementary advantages for biological imaging: proteins are amenable to genetic tagging, whereas dyes provide superior brightness and photostability. To combine these strengths, we used de novo protein design to generate small, nanomolar-affinity, high-selectivity binders (NovoTags) for three cell-permeable dyes spanning the visible spectrum. We show that the NovoTag fluorescent lifetimes can be tuned and demonstrate their application in lifetime and wavelength-based multiplexed fluorescence imaging. We further design a two-chain NovoTag that functions as a chemically induced dimerization system with fluorescent readout in living cells, or as a minimally perturbing proximity probe in fixed cells. Our approach combines the advantages of fluorescent proteins and small-molecule dyes, expanding the toolkit for cellular imaging.
- Department of Chemical Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA, USA.
Organizational Affiliation: 
















