Journal
JOURNAL OF MOLECULAR BIOLOGY
Volume 416, Issue 4, Pages 534-542Publisher
ACADEMIC PRESS LTD- ELSEVIER SCIENCE LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jmb.2012.01.001
Keywords
gene expression; light-oxygen-voltage; optogenetics; photoreceptor; protein engineering
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Funding
- Humboldt-Universitat zu Berlin
- National Institutes of Health [GM036452]
- Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
- German Federal Ministry for Education and Research
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Signaling photoreceptors mediate diverse organismal adaptations in response to light. As light-gated protein switches, signaling photoreceptors provide the basis for optogenetics, a term that refers to the control of organismal physiology and behavior by light. We establish as novel optogenetic tools the plasmids pDusk and pDawn, which employ blue-light photoreceptors to confer light-repressed or light-induced gene expression in Escherichia coli with up to 460-fold induction upon illumination. Key features of these systems are low background activity, high dynamic range, spatial control on the 20-mu m scale, independence from exogenous factors, and ease of use. In optogenetic experiments, pDusk and pDawn can be used to specifically perturb individual nodes of signaling networks and interrogate their role. On the preparative scale, pDawn can induce by light the production of recombinant proteins and thus represents a cost-effective and readily automated alternative to conventional induction systems. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
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