A new study from Laura Comley, Tom Wishart, Simon Parson, Tom Gillingwater and colleagues has shown that fluorescent proteins commonly used to label and view motor neurons in experiments may actually alter the properties of the neurons being studied. The paper, published in the open access journal PLoS One, reports that the presence of yellow fluorescent protein in motor neurons stresses them, which in turn can alter responses to aspects of neurodegeneration relevant to motor neuron disease. This finding has important implications for designing future studies using fluorescent proteins to label motor neurons, particularly when the purpose of the study is to examine genetic and protein changes underlying disease.

Full paper details: Comley, L.H., Wishart, T.M., Baxter, B., Murray, L.M., Nimmo, A., Thomson, D., Parson, S.H. & Gillingwater, T.H. (2011) Induction of cell stress in neurons from transgenic mice expressing yellow fluorescent protein: Implications for neurodegeneration research. PLoS One 6: e17639.

The full paper can be downloaded from: www.plosone.org