FAST and splitFAST, and all variants, and related fluorogens, in this straightforward review authored by inventor Arnaud Gautier published in Acc. Chem. Res. 2022.

FAST and splitFAST in a nutshell

FAST and splitFAST in a nutshell

In this Account, Arnaud Gautier navigates through the FAST journey starting from the princeps paper in PNAS 2016 which initially disclosed Y-FAST.  He indeed reiterates the major milestones of FAST since then.  In Bioconjug. Chem. 2018, membrane-impermeant fluorogens allow study of membrane protein trafficking.  In Nat. Commun. 2019, splitFAST is the first-ever split fluorescent reporter with rapid and reversible complementation.  In Nat. Chem. Biol. 2020, the orthogonal fluorescent chemogenetic reporters, greenFAST and redFAST, enable FAST multicolor imaging.  Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2020 discloses frFAST, a far-red fluorescent reporter for in vivo molecular imaging.  And eventually, in Nat. Commun. 2021, pFAST dramatically widens the wavelength span at bettered brightness.

As a result, application papers have bloomed, especially in microbiology.  FAST and above derivates were successfully implemented in microorganisms cultures for mechanism deciphering or strain engineering.  Escherichia coli and Listeria monocytogenes, Clostridia, Eubacterium limosum, Acetobacterium woodii for bacteria.  And eventually Giardia intestinalis for protozoa, or Methanococcus maripaludis and Methanosarcina acetivorans for Archaea.  Also, FAST and splitFAST were explored for microbiota imaging in gut and tumors, and for biofilm monitoring.

For four years, The Twinkle Factory has been happy to help you stain different and expedite your research.  More is coming!  Stay tuned!