Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Genetically Encoded Fluorescent Protein Biosensor For Nitric Oxide, Wenjia Zhai

Department of Chemistry: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Nitric oxide (NO) is an important molecule in living cells for signaling, thus a specific sensor to detect its level in live cells is needed. Currently there are a few small molecule probes for the detection of NO. A common shortcoming of these probes is their unavoidable leakage from the target cells. In this project, I seek to develop a novel green fluorescent protein (GFP)-based biosensor to detect cellular NO. This GFP-based sensor is genetically encodable and can potentially avoid the possible false positive result due to the leakage. I synthesized an unnatural amino acid (unAA) and examined its incorporation …