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Pig Kidney Cells with mEmerald-Plastin

The cultured pig kidney epithelial cells (LLC-PK1 line) featured in the digital video sequence in this section are visualized expressing mEmerald fused to plastin. L-Plastin is an actin-bundling protein that belongs to the alpha-actinin family of proteins and to the fimbrin subfamily where it demonstrates functional conservation. Fimbrins are related to unipolar filaments in vivo, as in microvilli of epithelial cells, stereocilia of epididymis, and hair cells. In adhesion sites, fimbrin is located at the cell-matrix interface where it interacts with vimentin.

The green fluorescent protein mEmerald is a variant of enhanced Aequorea GFP that exhibits excitation and emission maxima at 487 and 509 nanometers, respectively. In addition to the same mutations characteristic of EGFP, mEmerald features four additional point mutations. mEmerald is both brighter and more photostable than its parent protein. One weakness of mEmerald, however, is a fast photobleaching component.