We had an interesting talk about biosensors recently, allowing live cell imaging of important biochemicals. I think one of the major problems that re-occurred was the lack of dynamic range. So, there wasn't enough of a change in fluoresence to be a really useful tool, even though the binding component was able to selectively bind its ligand and induce conformational changes. Here, Promega has developed a cAMP biosensor with increased dynamic range. I don't think there are chemical indicators for cAMP. Some additional benefits of using a protein are that you don't have to worry about diffusion out of the cell. This makes FACS possible - cell sorting - allowing you to collect cAMP-sensing cells and compare them no non-cAMP-sensing cells to help get at the biological significance. -That's not in the paper, but I imagine that could be a good future direction to go in.
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