Optimising expression of the large dynamic range FRET pair mNeonGreen and superfolder mTurquoise2ox for use in the Escherichia coli cytoplasm

Abstract

The fluorescent proteins superfolder mTurquoise2ox (sfTq2ox) and mNeonGreen function excellently in mammalian cells, but are not well expressed in E. coli when forming the N-terminus of constructs. Expression was increased by decreasing structures at the start of their coding sequences in the mRNA. Unfortunately, the expression of mNeonGreen started from methionine at position ten as optimisation introduced an alternative RBS in the GFP N-terminus of mNeonGreen. The original start-codon was not deleted, which caused the expression of isomers starting at the original start-codon and at the start-codon at the beginning of the GFP N-terminus. By omitting the GFP N-terminus of mNeonGreen and optimising the structure of its mRNA, the expression of a mixture of isomers was avoided, and up to ~ 50-fold higher expression rates were achieved for mNeonGreen. Both fluorescent proteins can now be expressed at readily detectable levels in E. coli and can be used for various purposes. One explored application is the detection of in-cell protein interactions by FRET. mNeonGreen and sfTq2ox form a FRET pair with a larger dynamic range than commonly used donor–acceptor pairs, allowing for an excellent signal-to-noise ratio, which supports the detection of conformational changes that affect the distance between the interacting proteins.