Color	mass (g/mol)	Absorb (nm)	Emit (nm)	ε (M-1cm-1)
DyLight 350	violet	874	353	432	15,000
DyLight 405	violet	793	400	420	30,000
DyLight 488	green	1011	493	518	70,000
DyLight 550	yellow	982	562	576	150,000
DyLight 594	orange	1078	593	618	80,000
DyLight 633	red	1066	638	658	170,000
DyLight 650	red	1008	654	673	250,000
DyLight 680	far-red	950	692	712	140,000
DyLight 755	near-IR	1092	754	776	220,000
DyLight 800	near-IR	1050	777	794	270,000
Reference:

The DyLight Fluor family of fluorescent

Fluorescence

Fluorescence is the emission of light by a substance that has absorbed light or other electromagnetic radiation of a different wavelength. It is a form of luminescence. In most cases, emitted light has a longer wavelength, and therefore lower energy, than the absorbed radiation...

 dyes are produced by Dyomics in collaboration with Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific

Thermo Fisher Scientific is a large life sciences supply company that was created in 2006 by the merger of Thermo Electron and Fisher Scientific.-Predecessors and merger:...

. DyLight dyes are typically used in biotechnology and research applications as biomolecule

Biomolecule

A biomolecule is any molecule that is produced by a living organism, including large polymeric molecules such as proteins, polysaccharides, lipids, and nucleic acids as well as small molecules such as primary metabolites, secondary metabolites, and natural products...

, cell and tissue labels for fluorescence microscopy

Fluorescence microscope

A fluorescence microscope is an optical microscope used to study properties of organic or inorganic substances using the phenomena of fluorescence and phosphorescence instead of, or in addition to, reflection and absorption...

, cell biology

Cell biology

Cell biology is a scientific discipline that studies cells – their physiological properties, their structure, the organelles they contain, interactions with their environment, their life cycle, division and death. This is done both on a microscopic and molecular level...

 or molecular biology

Molecular biology

Molecular biology is the branch of biology that deals with the molecular basis of biological activity. This field overlaps with other areas of biology and chemistry, particularly genetics and biochemistry...

.

Historically, fluorophores such as fluorescein

Fluorescein

Fluorescein is a synthetic organic compound available as a dark orange/red powder soluble in water and alcohol. It is widely used as a fluorescent tracer for many applications....

, rhodamine

Rhodamine

Rhodamine is a family of related chemical compounds, fluorone dyes. Examples are Rhodamine 6G and Rhodamine B. They are used as a dye and as a dye laser gain medium. They are often used as a tracer dye within water to determine the rate and direction of flow and transport...

, Cy3 and Cy5

Cyanine

Cyanine is a non-systematic name of a synthetic dye family belonging to polymethine group. Cyanines have many uses as fluorescent dyes, particularly in biomedical imaging...

 have been used in a wide variety of applications. These dyes have limitations for use in microscopy and other applications that require exposure to an intense light source such as a laser, because they photobleach quickly (however, lifetimes can be increased at least 10 fold using oxygen scavenging). DyLight Fluors have comparable excitation and emission spectra and are claimed to be more photostable

Photobleaching

Photobleaching is the photochemical destruction of a fluorophore. In microscopy, photobleaching may complicate the observation of fluorescent molecules, since they will eventually be destroyed by the light exposure necessary to stimulate them into fluorescing...

, brighter, and less pH

PH

In chemistry, pH is a measure of the acidity or basicity of an aqueous solution. Pure water is said to be neutral, with a pH close to 7.0 at . Solutions with a pH less than 7 are said to be acidic and solutions with a pH greater than 7 are basic or alkaline...

-sensitive. The excitation

Excited state

Excitation is an elevation in energy level above an arbitrary baseline energy state. In physics there is a specific technical definition for energy level which is often associated with an atom being excited to an excited state....

 and emission spectra of the DyLight Fluor series covers much of the visible spectrum

Visible spectrum

The visible spectrum is the portion of the electromagnetic spectrum that is visible to the human eye. Electromagnetic radiation in this range of wavelengths is called visible light or simply light. A typical human eye will respond to wavelengths from about 390 to 750 nm. In terms of...

 and extends into the infrared

Infrared

Infrared light is electromagnetic radiation with a wavelength longer than that of visible light, measured from the nominal edge of visible red light at 0.74 micrometres , and extending conventionally to 300 µm...

 region, allowing detection using most fluorescence microscopes, as well as infrared imaging systems.

To use the DyLight Fluors with fluorescent imagers, use a spectral line of the blue laser diode

Laser diode

The laser diode is a laser where the active medium is a semiconductor similar to that found in a light-emitting diode. The most common type of laser diode is formed from a p-n junction and powered by injected electric current...

 for DyLight 405, a cyan (488 nm) laser for DyLight 488, a green (526 nm) laser for DyLight 550 and 594, and a red (633 nm) laser for DyLight 633 and 650. The DyLight 680, 755 and 800 fluors are compatible with laser- and filter-based infrared imaging instruments that emit in the 700 nm, 750 nm and 800 nm region of the spectrum, respectively.

DyLight protein labeling (e.g. antibodies) implicates photometric determination of the labeling efficiency with minimal sample amounts. Specialized nano-volume photometer offer the possibility to determine protein concentration as well as incorporation of DyLight with submicroliter volumes (starting with 0.3 µl).

DyLight Fluors are synthesized

Chemical synthesis

In chemistry, chemical synthesis is purposeful execution of chemical reactions to get a product, or several products. This happens by physical and chemical manipulations usually involving one or more reactions...

 through sulfonate

Sulfonate

A sulfonate is a salt or ester of a sulfonic acid. It contains the functional group R-SO2O-.- Sulfonate salts:Anions with the general formula RSO2O− are called sulfonates. They are the conjugate bases of sulfonic acids with formula RSO2OH. As sulfonic acids tend to be strong acids, the...

 addition to coumarin

Coumarin

Coumarin is a fragrant chemical compound in the benzopyrone chemical class, found in many plants, notably in high concentration in the tonka bean , vanilla grass , sweet woodruff , mullein , sweet grass , cassia cinnamon and sweet clover...

, xanthene

Xanthene

Xanthene is a yellow organic heterocyclic compound. Its chemical formula is 1310. It is soluble in diethyl ether. Its melting point is 101-102 °C and its boiling point is 310-312 °C...

 (such as fluorescein and rhodamine), and cyanine dyes. Sulfonation makes DyLight dyes negatively charged

Electric charge

Electric charge is a physical property of matter that causes it to experience a force when near other electrically charged matter. Electric charge comes in two types, called positive and negative. Two positively charged substances, or objects, experience a mutual repulsive force, as do two...

 and hydrophilic. DyLight Fluors are commercially available as reactive succinimidyl-esters for labeling proteins through lysine

Lysine

Lysine is an α-amino acid with the chemical formula HO2CCH4NH2. It is an essential amino acid, which means that the human body cannot synthesize it. Its codons are AAA and AAG....

 residues

Amino acid

Amino acids are molecules containing an amine group, a carboxylic acid group and a side-chain that varies between different amino acids. The key elements of an amino acid are carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, and nitrogen...

, and as maleimide

Maleimide

Maleimide is the chemical compound with the formula H2C22NH . This unsaturated imide is an important building block in organic synthesis. The name is a contraction of maleic acid and imide, the -CNHC- functional group...

 derivatives for labeling proteins through cysteine

Cysteine

Cysteine is an α-amino acid with the chemical formula HO2CCHCH2SH. It is a non-essential amino acid, which means that it is biosynthesized in humans. Its codons are UGU and UGC. The side chain on cysteine is thiol, which is polar and thus cysteine is usually classified as a hydrophilic amino acid...

 residues. Antibodies conjugated are also available (by Thermo Fisher Scientific, Jackson Immunoresearch, Rockland Immunochemicals, Inc., AbD Serotec,KPL, Biocare Medical and Abcam).

Similar lines of fluorescent dyes

Fluorophore

A fluorophore, in analogy to a chromophore, is a component of a molecule which causes a molecule to be fluorescent. It is a functional group in a molecule which will absorb energy of a specific wavelength and re-emit energy at a different wavelength...

 provide an alternative to the DyLight Dyes (see also the list in :Category:Fluorescent dyes).