Person: Jones, Ethan
Loading...
Email Address
AA Acceptance Date
Birth Date
Research Projects
Organizational Units
Job Title
Last Name
Jones
First Name
Ethan
Name
Jones, Ethan
Search Results
Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
Publication LanTERN: A Fluorescent Sensor That Specifically Responds to Lanthanides(American Chemical Society (ACS), 2024-02-20) Jones, Ethan; Su, Yang; Sander, Chris; Justman, Quincey A.; Springer, Michael; Silver, Pamela A; Silver, PamelaLanthanides, a series of 15 f-block elements, are crucial in modern technology, and their purification by conventional chemical means comes at a significant environmental cost. Synthetic biology offers promising solutions. However, progress in developing synthetic biology approaches is bottlenecked because it is challenging to measure lanthanide binding with current biochemical tools. Here we introduce LanTERN, a lanthanide-responsive fluorescent protein. LanTERN was designed based on GCaMP, a genetically encoded calcium indicator that couples the ion binding of four EF hand motifs to increased GFP fluorescence. We engineered eight mutations across the parent construct’s four EF hand motifs to switch specificity from calcium to lanthanides. The resulting protein, LanTERN, directly converts the binding of 10 measured lanthanides to 14-fold or greater increased fluorescence. LanTERN development opens new avenues for creating improved lanthanide-binding proteins and biosensing systems.