In this video posted by France Bio-Imaging in 2017, Prof. Arnaud Gautier disclosed FAST and how it would turn into The Twinkle Factory.  He had previously published FAST in PNAS 206.  Since then, FAST leveled up into splitFAST and The Twinkle Factory developed a wide range of fluorogens for FAST, splitFAST, greenFAST and redFAST, and frFAST.  Browse our website to learn how FAST and splitFAST can help you meet the challenges in your research.  Stain different, tag FAST!

About FAST

FAST of The Twinkle Factory stands for Fluorescence-Activating and absorption-Shifting Tag.  It is a small, genetically-encoded, protein tag which allows for fluorescence reporting of proteins of interest.  Unlike conventional tags such as GFP or mCherry, FAST is not fluorescent by itself.  But it selectively binds a fluorogenic chromophore which is itself non fluorescent.  Once bound only, the pair of molecules gets fluorescent.  FAST is instantaneous.  It requires no maturation, no oxygen.  And fluorescence is reversible, which is quite unique!  The FAST-fluorogen reporting system can hence be used in fluorescence microscopy, flow cytometry and any other fluorometric method to explore the living world: biosensors, protein trafficking.

Prof. Arnaud Gautier and Prof. Ludovic Jullien from Ecole normale supérieure de Paris first disclosed FAST in PNAS 2016.  They engineered this small 14 kDa protein from the photoactive yellow protein (PYP) by directed evolution.  This seminal paper was referring to FAST as Y-FAST.  Arnaud Gautier further developed a split version, splitFAST, published in Nature Communications 2019. Thereafter, Arnaud Gautier disclosed orthogonal variants, namely redFAST and greenFAST in Nature Chemical Biology 2020.  Those latter allow the multicolor observation of multiple targets simultaneously inside living cells.  He furthermore introduced frFAST in Angew. Chem. Int. Ed. 2020.  frFAST allows for far-red labeling.

About The Twinkle Factory

The Twinkle Factory has developed a wide range of Fluorogens for FAST, splitFAST, greenFAST and redFAST, and frFAST.  These include HMBR (tfLime), HBR-3,5DOM (tfCoral), HBR-3,5DM (tfAmber), HBRAA-3E (tfAmber-NP), and HPAR-3OM (tfPoppy).