New probe technology illuminates the activation of light-sensing cells

Through ingenious combinations of roughly 20 amino acids, the basic building blocks of life, genes can build the proteins that comprise everything from the simplest bacteria to the human brain. In new research published today in Nature, scientists unveil a new technique to illuminate the function of those proteins. The method of genetically targeting a non-natural amino acid to specific locations within a protein could theoretically be adapted to place a fluorescent probe at any position in any protein in a mammalian cell.

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