Fig. 1

Expression of non-functional DsRed. a DsRed Protein sequence. Three potential translational start sites (methioinine) are indicated in bold. The valine which corresponds to the methionine start site of mCherry in M. tuberculosis is also indicated in bold. b DNA sequence of DsRed. The 5′ end of the synthetic gene designed to codon-optimize DsRed for M. tuberculosis is boxed. Potential starts sites are indicated in bold. The Shine Delgarno sequence is underlined. c M. tuberculosis was resuspended in 10 mM Tris pH 8.0 to an OD₅₈₀ of 0.25, 0.10, 0.05 and 0.01 in 12 × 100 mm glass culture tubes. Fluorescence was measured at Ex/Em 558/583 nm. WT—wild-type (no plasmid). pBlaze1—recombinant strain carrying DsRed 208aa. Data are the average ± SD of three cultures