Deen Sun

A Cinderella story: raising CLIP-tag from the ashes to shine in fluorescence labeling.
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...

🚨🚨Double preprint alert! 🚨🚨
Two papers went up on Biorxiv this week!
The first presents new chemigenetic FRET-based biosensors: www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
And the second presents an improved version of our C-Y FRET PKA reporters, AKAR6 www.biorxiv.org/content/10.6...
Thread 🧵 1/5

Fast, Bright, and Reversible Fluorescent Labeling of Rhodamine-Binding Proteins Rhodamine dyes conjugated to targeting ligands can yield exceptionally bright fluorescent probes for live-cell imaging. However, the limited permeability of such rhodamine derivatives restricts their ...

A good end to 2025: rhodamine-binders for bioimaging in JACS: pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/...

🚨Excited to share this collaborative work with Ming-Ming. 🎉Check it out!▶️https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.64898/2025.12.05.692539v1

ERC Synergy Grant for MPI Director Kai Johnsson

🎉🌟Big news! Our Director @kjohnsson.bsky.social has received an @erc.europa.eu Synergy Grant, together with teams from EPFL @sulianamanley.bsky.social and @unibe.ch! 👏They’ll explore how mitochondria communicate with other cell parts🔬 #ERCSyG #maxplanck #mpimr #science
www.mr.mpg.de/14662972/erc...

😎 Back from our #scientificretreat 2025 in Neckarsulm, full of scientific exchange and #teamspirit! 🤩🌟One highlight was the tour of the Bildungscampus in Heilbronn, where two new departments of our institute will be established, and the Innovation Park for #AI #IPAI 🚀
#maxplanck #mpimr #letsmingle

AlphaFold - A practical guide AlphaFold - A practical guide

Recently I learnt that EMBL-EBI has a free online course about AlphaFold — how it works, strengths and limitations, how to use it — and it's very good!

There are also little quizzes and interactives.
www.ebi.ac.uk/training/onl...

Protein β-O-glucosylation by Legionella LtpM through short consensus sequons G-T/S and S-G - Nature Chemical Biology Legionella effector LtpM is found to recognize short two-residue sequons, enabling site-specific O-glucosylation with minimal perturbations to a target protein, and is used to show that O-glucose can ...

#glycotime Legionella effector LtpM is found to recognize strict two-residue sequons for site-specific O-glucosylation with minimal perturbations to a target protein and is used to show that O-glucose can act as a constitutively active O-GlcNAc mimic

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

SNAP-tag2 for faster and brighter protein labeling - Nature Chemical Biology SNAP-tag is a widespread tool for labeling protein for bioimaging. Now, Kühn et al. report SNAP-tag2 with increased labeling kinetics and brightness, which translates into a better performance in live...

Finally out in Nature Chem Bio:
SNAP-tag2 for faster and brighter protein labeling
www.nature.com/articles/s41...
Thank you Steffi and Veselin.

Fast, Bright and Reversible Rhodamine Tags for Live-Cell Imaging We present Rho-tag and SiR-tag, engineered protein tags derived from bacterial multidrug-resistance proteins that bind unsubstituted (silicon-) rhodamines with nanomolar affinity, enabling fast, rever...

Teaching an old bacterial protein new tricks: Fast, bright and reversible rhodamine tags for live-cell imaging:

www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...

Congratulations to Julian Kompa and the entire team.

Molecular recording of cellular protein kinase activity with chemical labeling - Nature Chemical Biology Molecular recorders based on kinase activity-dependent protein labeling track specific kinase activities to understand their link to cellular phenotypes in heterogeneous cell populations and in vivo.

Molecular recording of cellular protein kinase activity with chemical labeling:

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Congratulations to De-en Sun and the entire team.