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Rabbit Kidney Cells with mEmerald-Plastin and mCherry-H2B

RK-13 cells are often used experiments isolating viruses and are also used as transfection hosts. It has been established that the cells are susceptible to infection with vaccinia, the B virus, rubella virus, myxoma, herpes simplex, rabbitpox, simian adenoviruses, and the pseudorabies virus. Bundled actin filaments and the cell nucleus were targeted in rabbit kidney epithelial cells (RK-13 line) appearing in the digital video sequence in this section. The actin bundles were visualized with mEmerald fused to plastin, a monomeric actin-binding protein that functions in the organization and stabilization of the actin cytoskeleton. The cell nucleus was fluorescently tagged with mCherry fused to H2B, a major type of histone protein.

As its name suggests, mEmerald is a green fluorescent protein. The high-performance variant of EGFP exhibits excellent brightness and photostability, but its prominent fast photobleaching component can be problematic in certain microscopy applications. mCherry is a red member of the mFruit series of fluorescent proteins. Like other members of this series, mCherry was derived from mRFP1 using a directed evolution approach.