Monkey Kidney Cells with mEmerald-Actin and mApple-Lysosomes
Kidney epithelial cells of African green monkeys (BS-C-1 line) have been frequently used to produce poliovirus vaccines since the 1950s. It was later discovered that some of the earlier vaccines produced were contaminated with various simian viruses, thus the occurrence of complex forms of Simian Virus 40 DNA has been closely studied in infected BS-C-1 cells.
In the digital video sequence in this section, lysosomes are visualized in the BS-C-1 cells featured with mApple. The red fluorescent protein is similar in spectral characteristics to mStrawberry, but mApple is significantly more photostable. Both are members of the mFruit series of fluorescent proteins derived from mRFP1 using a directed evolution approach. mEmerald, a green EGFP variant, was also employed in order to highlight the actin cytoskeletal network.