The receptors and channels that reside on the surface of a neuron enable it to respond to and integrate a wide variety of signals. Electrophysiology has made it possible to study the behavior of these channels in remarkable detail. For instance, patch-clamp recording has made it possible in many instances to actually resolve the opening and closing of individual channels. Similarly, immuncytochemistry has provided us with static images of where these proteins are in a neuron. Nevertheless, we know remarkably little about how these proteins are actually used by living cells. Fundamental questions concerning how long they are at the surface, how localized they are, how quickly they are internalized in response to activation, or how free they are to move about on the surface remain to be addressed. One way to answer such questions is to fluorescently label these proteins and image them in living cells. The discovery of the jellyfish green fluorescent protein has recently made this feasible, and the new views it is providing are the topic of this review.
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