Novel fluorescent protein from Discosoma coral and its mutants possesses a unique far‐red fluorescence

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Abstract
A novel gene for advanced red‐shifted protein with an emission maximum at 593 nm was cloned from Discosoma coral. The protein, named dsFP593, is highly homologous to the recently described GFP‐like protein drFP583 with an emission maximum at 583 nm. Using the remarkable similarity of the drFP583 and dsFP593 genes, we performed a ‘shuffling’ procedure to generate a pool of mutants consisting of various combinations of parts of both genes. One ‘hybrid gene’ was chosen for subsequent random mutagenesis, which resulted in a mutant variant with a uniquely red‐shifted emission maximum at 616 nm.