FITC-xtra

Although FITC is still the most popular fluorescent labeling dye for preparing green fluorescent bioconjugates, there are certain limitations with FITC, such as severe photobleaching for microscope imaging and pH-sensitive fluorescence. Protein conjugates prepared with FITC-xtra are far superior compared to the corresponding FITC conjugates. FITC-xtra conjugates are significantly brighter than FITC conjugates and are much more photostable. Additionally, the fluorescence of FITC-xtra is not affected by pH (4-10). This pH insensitivity is a major improvement over FITC, which emits its maximum fluorescence only at pH above 9. FITC-xtra has spectral properties almost identical FITC. In addition, FITC-xtra give much higher conjugation yield under mild conjugation conditions than FITC. Like 5-FITC, FITC-xtra antibody conjugates have excitation ideally suited to the 488 nm laser line, making them alternatives to the corresponding FITC-labeled antibody conjugates. Under the same conditions tested, FITC-xtra antibody conjugates give much higher signal/background ratios than the corresponding FITC-labeled conjugates.