about chromovert® technologyOverview Chromovert is based upon the ability of fluorogenic probes to identify specific gene expression in living cells combined with cell sorting to rapidly identify and isolate positive fluorescent cells. These fluorogenic probes are commonly short oligonucleotides comprised of a central stretch of nucleotides complementary to the target RNA sequence and mutually complementary termini. One terminus is covalently bound to a fluorophore and the other to a quenching moiety. In the absence of target, the termini are hybridized such that the fluorophore and the quencher are in close proximity and little or no fluorescence is produced. When hybridized to its target sequence, the probe undergoes a spontaneous fluorogenic conformational change that displaces the fluorophore from the vicinity of the quencher, resulting in a detectable fluorescent signal. Even more importantly, for the first time, multiple genes can be transfected and assayed simultaneously such that isolation of cells expressing multiple genes is now a single-step, automated process. While traditional methods of cell line creation allow for the screening of at most hundreds of clones, Chromovert enables the exploration of the entire “transfectome” of the clones derived from a stable cloning event.
