Light-gated rhodopsin cation channels from chlorophyte algae have transformed neuroscience research through their use as membrane-depolarizing optogenetic tools for targeted photoactivation of neuron firing. Photosuppression of neuronal action potentials has been limited by the lack of equally efficient tools for membrane hyperpolarization. We describe anion channel rhodopsins (ACRs), a family of light-gated anion channels from cryptophyte algae that provide highly sensitive and efficient membrane hyperpolarization and neuronal silencing through light-gated chloride conduction. ACRs strictly conducted anions, completely excluding protons and larger cations, and hyperpolarized the membrane of cultured animal cells with much faster kinetics at less than one-thousandth of the light intensity required by the most efficient currently available optogenetic proteins. Natural ACRs provide optogenetic inhibition tools with unprecedented light sensitivity and temporal precision.

Microbial rhodopsins are a family of photoactive retinylidene proteins widespread throughout the microbial world. They are notable for their diversity of function, using variations of a shared seven-transmembrane helix design and similar photochemical reactions to carry out distinctly different light-driven energy and sensory transduction processes. Their study has contributed to our understanding of how evolution modifies protein scaffolds to create new protein chemistry, and their use as tools to control membrane potential with light is fundamental to the transformative technology of optogenetics. We review the currently known functions, and present more in-depth assessment of three functionally and structurally distinct types discovered over the past two years: (i) anion-conducting channelrhodopsins (ACRs) from cryptophyte algae, enabling efficient optogenetic neural suppression, (ii) cryptophyte cation-conducting channelrhodopsins (CCRs), structurally distinct from the green algae CCRs used extensively for neural activation, and (iii) enzymerhodopsins, with light-gated guanylylcyclase or kinase activity promising for optogenetic control of signal transduction.

A recently discovered family of natural anion channelrhodopsins (ACRs) have the highest conductance among channelrhodopsins and exhibit exclusive anion selectivity, which make them efficient inhibitory tools for optogenetics. We report analysis of flashinduced absorption changes in purified wild-type and mutant ACRs, and of photocurrents they generate in HEK293 cells. Contrary to cation channelrhodopsins (CCRs), the ion conducting state of ACRs develops in an L-like intermediate that precedes the deprotonation of the retinylidene Schiff base (i.e., formation of an M intermediate). Channel closing involves two mechanisms leading to depletion of the conducting L-like state: (i) Fast closing is caused by a reversible L⇔M conversion. Glu-68 in Guillardia theta ACR1 plays an important role in this transition, likely serving as a counterion and proton acceptor at least at high and neutral pH. Incomplete suppression of M formation in the GtACR1_E68Q mutant indicates the existence of an alternative proton acceptor. (ii) Slow closing of the channel parallels irreversible depletion of the M-like and, hence, L-like state. Mutation of Cys-102 that strongly affected slow channel closing slowed the photocycle to the same extent. The L and M intermediates were in equilibrium in C102A as in the WT. In the position of Glu-123 in channelrhodopsin-2, ACRs contain a noncarboxylate residue, the mutation of which to Glu produced early Schiff base proton transfer and strongly inhibited channel activity. The data reveal fundamental differences between natural ACR and CCR conductance mechanisms and their underlying photochemistry, further confirming that these proteins form distinct families of rhodopsin channels.photochemical conversions | Schiff base | channel gating | channelrhodopsins | optogenetics T he genomes of cryptophyte algae harbor nucleotide sequences that encode anion-conducting channelrhodopsins (ACRs) (1, 2). Although these proteins show distant sequence homology to cation-conducting channelrhodopsins (CCRs) from green (chlorophyte) algae, they completely lack permeability for protons and metal cations and, thus, represent a distinct structural and functional class among microbial rhodopsins. Using ACRs permits optogenetic inhibition of neuronal firing at much lower light intensities than other currently used silencers (1).Analysis of photocurrents generated by ACR1 from Guillardia theta (GtACR1) in human embryonic kidney (HEK) cells under single-turnover conditions revealed that GtACR1 gating comprises two separate mechanisms with opposite dependencies on the membrane voltage and pH, and involving different amino acid residues (3). The first mechanism, characterized by fast closing of the channel, is regulated by Glu-68, a homolog of Glu-90 in channelrhodopsin-2 from the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii (CrChR2). Replacement of Glu-90 with Arg in CrChR2 made the channel permeable for Cl − (4), whereas the same substitution of Glu-68 in GtACR1 did not influence its selectivity for anions, but inverted its gating, ren...

Channelrhodopsins serve as photoreceptors that control the motility behavior of green flagellate algae and act as light-gated ion channels when heterologously expressed in animal cells. Here, we report direct measurements of proton transfer from the retinylidene Schiff base in several channelrhodopsin variants expressed in HEK293 cells. A fast outward-directed current precedes the passive channel current that has the opposite direction at physiological holding potentials. This rapid charge movement occurs on the timescale of the M intermediate formation in microbial rhodopsins, including that for channelrhodopsin from Chlamydomonas augustae and its mutants, reported in this study. Mutant analysis showed that the glutamate residue corresponding to Asp(85) in bacteriorhodopsin acts as the primary acceptor of the Schiff-base proton in low-efficiency channelrhodopsins. Another photoactive-site residue corresponding to Asp(212) in bacteriorhodopsin serves as an alternative proton acceptor and plays a more important role in channel opening than the primary acceptor. In more efficient channelrhodopsins from Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, Mesostigma viride, and Platymonas (Tetraselmis) subcordiformis, the fast current was apparently absent. The inverse correlation of the outward proton transfer and channel activity is consistent with channel function evolving in channelrhodopsins at the expense of their capacity for active proton transport.

Anion channelrhodopsins (ACRs) are a class of light-gated channels recently identified in cryptophyte algae that provide unprecedented fast and powerful hyperpolarizing tools for optogenetics. Analysis of photocurrents generated by Guillardia theta ACR 1 (GtACR1) and its mutants in response to laser flashes showed that GtACR1 gating comprises two separate mechanisms with opposite dependencies on the membrane voltage and pH and involving different amino acid residues. The first mechanism, characterized by slow opening and fast closing of the channel, is regulated by Glu-68. Neutralization of this residue (the E68Q mutation) specifically suppressed this first mechanism, but did not eliminate it completely at high pH. Our data indicate the involvement of another, yetunidentified pH-sensitive group X. Introducing a positive charge at the Glu-68 site (the E68R mutation) inverted the channel gating so that it was open in the dark and closed in the light, without altering its ion selectivity. The second mechanism, characterized by fast opening and slow closing of the channel, was not substantially affected by the E68Q mutation, but was controlled by Cys-102. The C102A mutation reduced the rate of channel closing by the second mechanism by ∼100-fold, whereas it had only a twofold effect on the rate of the first. The results show that anion conductance by ACRs has a fundamentally different structural basis than the relatively well studied conductance by cation channelrhodopsins (CCRs), not attributable to simply a modification of the CCR selectivity filter.ion transport | channel gating | channelrhodopsins | optogenetics R ecently we reported a class of rhodopsins from the cryptophyte alga Guillardia theta that act as anion-conducting channels when expressed in cultured animal cells and therefore can be used to suppress neuronal firing by light (1). These proteinsnamed anion channelrhodopsins (ACRs)-show distant sequence homology to cation channelrhodopsins (CCRs) from chlorophyte (green) algae (2), but completely lack permeability for protons and metal cations. This property, as well as large current amplitudes and fast kinetics, makes ACRs superior hyperpolarizing optogenetic tools, compared with proton and chloride pumps (3, 4), or engineered Cl − -conducting CCR variants (5, 6). Two G. theta (Gt) ACRs differ in their spectral sensitivity and channel kinetics (1). GtACR1, with its absorption peak at 515 nm (Fig. S1), has an advantage over a more blue-shifted GtACR2 with maximal efficiency at 470 nm, because it allows using light of longer wavelengths that is less scattered by biological tissue.Because a CCR could be altered to exhibit Cl − channel activity by mutation of a single amino acid residue (5), a fundamental question about ACRs is whether they differ from CCRs only by their selectivity filter. In our search for an answer, we analyzed photocurrents generated by GtACR1 in HEK293 cells under single-turnover conditions in which secondary photochemistry does not complicate the photocycle. We found that GtACR1 cond...