Part:BBa_K3814004

free-use GFP (fuGFP)

fuGFP, short for ‘free-use GFP’, is an open source GFP developed by Mark Somerville and Nick Coleman at the University of Sydney. Current GFPs like superfolding GFP (sfGFP) are protected IP and patented. This can make any commercial or even academic use of them expensive, and a barrier to research. Reading through the patents of GFPs, it was realised that if a GFP could be made with less than 80% homology to currently patented GFPs, it would escape patent protection!

So off they worked, and eventually they came to a product that had “76% amino acid identity to GFPmut3”, well below the 80% goal! See below its fluorescence:

Figure 1. Expression of fuGFP in E.coli strain TOP10.

References

Coleman, N., & Somerville, M. (2019, May). The Story of Free Use GFP (fuGFP). Small Things Considered. https://schaechter.asmblog.org/schaechter/2019/05/the-story-of-free-use-gfp-fugfp.html

Sequence and Features

Assembly Compatibility:

• 10
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[10]
• 12
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[12]
• 21
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[21]
• 23
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[23]
• 25
  INCOMPATIBLE WITH RFC[25]

  Illegal AgeI site found at 151
  
• 1000
  COMPATIBLE WITH RFC[1000]