Download Chemistry Nobel Prize Awarded for Glowing Protein Work

Chemistry Nobel Prize
Awarded for Glowing
Protein Work
Kate Ravilious
for National Geographic News
October 8, 2008
Two U.S. scientists and a U.S.-based Japanese researcher
will share the 2008 Nobel Prize in chemistry for discovering
and developing a glowing green protein that has been key to
improving our understanding of cell development.
Osamu Shimomura, from the Marine Biological Laboratory in
Woods Hole, Massachusetts, will receive a third of the 10million-Swedish-kronor (1.4-million-U.S.-dollar) prize for
isolating green fluorescent protein (GFP) from crystal jellyfish
(Aequorea victoria).
Martin Chalfie of Columbia University in New York also won
a third of the prize for demonstrating how GFP could be used
as a versatile genetic marker in virtually all organisms.
And Roger Tsien at the University of California, San Diego,
takes the final third of the prize for his contribution to
understanding how GFP glows and how it can be modified to
produce an array of colors, work that prompted some of his
peers to nickname him "Dr. Genius."
(Related: "'Brainbows' Illuminate the Mind's Wiring" [October
31, 2007].)
"GFP has been revolutionary to cell biology, and it is really
exciting to see this area recognized," said Sean Sweeney, a
researcher at the University of York in the U.K., who uses
GFP to study neurodegenerative diseases.
"Previously the only way to study the developmental fate of
cells was to be invasive—label cells with a dye and look at
the dead, labeled tissue with a microscope," Sweeney said.
"Now we can label them genetically with GFP and look at
cells live, over time."
Using GFP, scientists have been able to map the role of
different proteins in the body. Researchers also use the
protein to observe previously invisible processes, such as the
growth of a nerve cell in the brain or the spread of a
cancerous tumor.
From Jellyfish to Cancer Cells
Shimomura first isolated GFP in 1962 from crystal jellyfish,
which are found off the west coast of North America.
The jellyfish has organs—arranged like a fringe hanging from
its bell—that glow green when the animal is agitated.
Shimomura collected and studied samples of liquid from
these organs and found it contained a protein that glows
green under ultraviolet light. This protein, initially dubbed
aequorin, is what would later be called GFP.
In 1992 Columbia's Chalfie cloned GFP and used it to make
the bacterium Escherichia coli glow fluorescent green.
Later the following year Chalfie repeated the technique in the
transparent roundworm Caenorhabditis elegans, coloring six
different cells in the worm's body with the glowing substance.
Alison Woollard, a scientist at the University of Oxford, said,
"Using GFP on C. elegans, I have been able to study cells as
they develop, working out how they know when to take on a
particular role, such as becoming a skin cell or an intestinal
cell."
GFP can also demonstrate how things go wrong in living
cells.
In recent years the protein has played a crucial role in cancer
research, helping scientists understand the ways that tumors
form and grow. It has also been used to look at nerve cell
damage caused by Alzheimer's disease.
Glowing Rainbow
UC-San Diego's Tsien later added a range of color options to
researchers' palettes as part of his lab's work to understand
the chemistry of GFP's fluorescence.
His team modified GFP and other bioluminescent proteins to
produce new variants with fruity names such as mPlum,
mCherry, mOrange, and mHoneydew.
Oxford's Woollard said, "The use of many colors enables us
to look at many proteins simultaneously."
For example, recently researchers used a rainbow of
fluorescent proteins to label different nerve cells in the brain
of a mouse.
Sweeney, of the University of York, added: "When I worked
in a lab in San Francisco, we called Dr. Tsien 'Dr. Genius.'
"We would await his publications eagerly for the next 'trick' or
tool that was going to revolutionize the way we tackled
problems."
Last year's chemistry Nobel went to German researcher
Gerhard Ertl for his work on the chemistry of solid surfaces,
which set the stage for advances such as hydrogen fuel cells
and automobile catalytic converters.