Bright and stable monomeric green fluorescent protein derived from StayGold.

The high brightness and photostability of the green fluorescent protein StayGold make it a particularly attractive probe for long-term live-cell imaging; however, its dimeric nature precludes its application as a fluorescent tag for some proteins. Here, we report the development and crystal structures of a monomeric variant of StayGold, named mBaoJin, which preserves the beneficial properties of its precursor, while serving as a tag for structural proteins and membranes. Systematic benchmarking of mBaoJin against popular green fluorescent proteins and other recently introduced monomeric and pseudomonomeric derivatives of StayGold established mBaoJin as a bright and photostable fluorescent protein, exhibiting rapid maturation and high pH/chemical stability.

Band Gap Engineering in Ultimately Thin Slabs of CdTe with Different Layer Stackings.

Ultrathin solid slabs often have properties different from those of the bulk phase. This effect can be observed both in traditional three-dimensional materials and in van der Waals (vdW) solids in the few monolayer limit. In the present work, the band gap variation of the CdTe slabs, induced by their thickness, was studied by the density functional theory (DFT) method for the sphalerite (zinc-blende) phase and for the recently proposed inverted phase.

Novel stable ytterbium acetylacetonate-quinaldinate complexes as single-molecule magnets and surprisingly efficient luminophores.

The first Yb complexes comprising a quinoline-2-carboxylate (quinaldinate, Q) ligand, namely 1D-polymeric [Yb(acac)(Q)] (1, acac is the acetylacetonate (pentane-2,4-dionate) anion) and mononuclear [Yb(acac)(Q)(Phen)] (2, Phen is 1,10-phenanthroline), are reported. The bifunctionality of both complexes as field-induced single-molecule magnets (SMMs) and near IR luminophores has been revealed. The SMM properties of 1 and 2 have been discussed in terms of the geometry and composition of the coordination environment.

NanoLuc Luciferase as a Fluorogen-Activating Protein for GFP Chromophore Based Fluorogens.

In this work, we showed that the well-known NanoLuc luciferase can act as a fluorogen activating protein for various arylidene-imidazolones structurally similar to the Kaede protein chromophore. We showed that such compounds can be used as fluorescent sensors for this protein and can also be used in pairs with it in fluorescent microscopy as a genetically encoded tag.

Amorphous AsS Doped with Transition Metals: An Study of Electronic Structure and Magnetic Properties.

Crystalline transition-metal chalcogenides are the focus of solid state research. At the same time, very little is known about amorphous chalcogenides doped with transition metals. To close this gap, we have studied, using first principle simulations, the effect of doping the typical chalcogenide glass AsS with transition metals (Mo, W and V).