On October 8, 2008, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry to three important contributors to "the discovery and development of the green fluorescent protein, GFP":

• Osamu Shimomura, Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL), Woods Hole, MA, USA
• Martin Chalfie, Columbia University, New York, NY, USA
• Roger Y. Tsien, University of California, San Diego, CA, USA

Their work was instrumental in the development of GFP as a tagging tool in biological sciences.  With GFP, researchers can visualize and monitor previously invisible biological processes that occur inside cells, most notably, protein expression.

CAS databases demonstrate how the research of these honored scientists has furthered other scientific endeavors.

A search in SciFinder for each of the winners key papers on GFP indicates a large number of citations:

• Extraction, purification and properties of aequorin, a bioluminescent protein from the luminous hydromedusan, Aequorea
  (Shimomura, et al., J. Cell. Comp. Physiol., 1962)

286 citing references

• Green fluorescent protein as a marker for gene expression
  (Chalfie, et al., Science, 1994) 

2716 citing references

• Wavelength mutations and posttranslational autoxidation of green fluorescent protein 
  (Tsien, et al., Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA, 1994)

758 citing references

CAS databases also include more than 19,000 references to "green fluorescent protein". 

This remarkable volume of literature related to the work of Shimomura, Chalfie, and Tsien highlights the importance of their scientific accomplishments.

Contributed by
Peter S. Carlton, Ph.D.
CAS Communications

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