Identifying Subcellular Protein Localization with Fluorescent Protein Fusions After Transient Expression in Onion Epidermal Cells

Most biochemical functions of plant cells are carried out by proteins which act at very specific places within these cells, for example, within different organelles. Identifying the subcellular localization of proteins is therefore a useful tool to narrow down the possible functions that a novel or unknown protein may carry out. The discovery of genetically encoded fluorescent markers has made it possible to tag specific proteins and visualize them in vivo under a variety of conditions. This chapter describes a simple method to use transient expression of such fluorescently tagged proteins in onion epidermal cells to determine their subcellular localization relative to known markers.