Characterization and development of photoactivatable fluorescent proteins for single-molecule–based superresolution imaging

Photoactivatable fluorescent proteins (PAFPs) are important probes for superresolution fluorescence microscopy, which allows the spatial organization of proteins in living cells to be probed with sub–diffraction-limit resolution. Here, we compare four properties of PAFPs that are critical for superresolution imaging and report two new PAFPs that exhibit excellent performance in all four properties.