Fluorophore Multimerization as an Efficient Approach towards Bright Protein Labels

Cell analysis techniques like flow cytometry and fluorescence microscopy are widely used to explore cells in real-time and provide important insights into a variety of cellular processes. These techniques require bright and specific staining reagents to generate strong fluorescence signal and enable reliable read-out, making the choice of fluorescent labels a key aspect of experimental design. Much research has been done in the field of fluorophore development to generate bright small-molecule dyes, fluorescent proteins, and emitting nanoparticles. However, it remains challenging to modify biomolecules with multiple emitters and avoid self-quenching of such fluorophores at the same time. Herein, we present advances in multimerization-based methods for the generation of fluorescent labels with high brightness and discuss their advantages and limitations in the context of flow cytometry and fluorescence microscopy applications.