The fluorescent properties of green fluorescent protein (GFP) is mainly due to three amino acid residues, Ser, Tyr, and Gly that undergo an autocatalytic intramolecular cyclization to form 4-hydroxybenzlidene imidazolinone (HBI). HBI on its own, unbound to protein, is not fluorescent. HBI needs the surrounding protein to prevent intramolecular motions, which causes fluorescence to be the major way the molecule releases energy. In this paper, the authors theorize that aptamers may be able to mimic the function of the GFP and EGFP protein for derivatives of HBI and act as a way to fluorescently tag RNA. You'll have to read the article to see if this strategy worked.
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