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IMAGE: Allowing discrimination between organelle DNA using low phototoxicity visible light, Kakshine offers easy imaging even with cutting edge microscopy techniques. view more
Credit: Yoshikatsu Sato
A group of scientists at Nagoya University, Japan, have developed an incredibly versatile DNA fluorescent dye, named Kakshine after a former NU student of its members, Dr Kakishi Uno, but it also means to make the nucleus shine brightly, since the nucleus is pronounced Kaku in Japanese. Dr Uno, with Dr Yoshikatsu Sato and Nagisa Sugimoto, the other two members of the research team at the Institute of Transformative Bio-Molecules (ITbM), succeeded in developing a DNA binding fluorescent dye with the pyrido cyanine backbone, which satisfied the three principal qualities required of such a dye - that it have high selectivity for DNA, ability to use visible light with limited phototoxicity, and be applicable to a wide range of organisms - in a way that no previous