Epicocconone is a long Stokes' shift

fluorescent dye A fluorophore (or fluorochrome, similarly to a chromophore) is a fluorescent chemical compound that can re-emit light upon light excitation. Fluorophores typically contain several combined aromatic groups, or planar or cyclic molecules with se ...

found in the fungus ''

Epicoccum nigrum ''Epicoccum nigrum'' is a species of fungus in the phylum Ascomycota. A plant pathogen and endophyte, it is a widespread fungus which produces coloured pigments that can be used as Fungicide, antifungal agents against other pathogenic fungi. The ...

''. Though weakly fluorescent in water (green emission, 520 nm) it reacts reversibly with

protein Proteins are large biomolecules and macromolecules that comprise one or more long chains of amino acid residues. Proteins perform a vast array of functions within organisms, including catalysing metabolic reactions, DNA replication, respo ...

s to yield a product with a strong orange-red emission (610 nm). Epicoconone is notable because it the first covalent/ reversible/turn-on fluorophore to be discovered and is a natural product with a new fluorescent scaffold. Accordingly, this dye can be used as a sensitive total protein stain for 1D and 2D electrophoresis, quantitative determination of protein concentration, making it a powerful loading control for

Western blot The western blot (sometimes called the protein immunoblot), or western blotting, is a widely used analytical technique in molecular biology and immunogenetics to detect specific proteins in a sample of tissue homogenate or extract. Besides detect ...

Synthetic variant

In addition to the natural variant from the fungus, there are several synthetic analogs. With respect to protein staining properties there are few differences between natural and synthetic analogs.

References

{{Reflist Fluorescent dyes