Two-photon excitation action cross-sections of the autofluorescent proteins

We report on the values of the two-photon excitation action cross-sections of commercially available enhanced cyan, green, yellow, and red fluorescent proteins. The two-photon absorption spectra are very similar in shape to those measured for one-photon absorption. However, they exhibit a significant blueshift, which is attributed to the participation of a vibrational mode in the two-photon absorption process. The two-photon spectra are compared to that of flavine mononucleotide, which constitutes the main source of autofluorescence in mammalian cells. The definition of a relative detection yield between the autofluorescent proteins and flavine allows us to quantify the applicability of autofluorescent proteins in two-photon single-molecule studies in living cells.