How to control proteins with light in living systems

Gautier, Arnaud; Gauron, Carole; Volovitch, Michel; Bensimon, David; Jullien, Ludovic; Vriz, Sophie

doi:10.1038/nchembio.1534

Cited by 229 publications

(182 citation statements)

References 103 publications

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“…Pharmacological perturbations can rapidly turn on or off the function of a target protein, but they provide no spatial information and commonly cause off-target effects. Optogenetics permits manipulation of intracellular signaling pathways using light-mediated protein heterodimerization and homodimerization (Gautier et al, 2014;Pathak et al, 2013). Optogenetic approaches provide a potential solution to the problem of dissecting cellular network function (Toettcher et al, 2011).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optogenetic activation reveals distinct roles of PIP3 and Akt in adipocyte insulin action

Nan

Fan

et al. 2016

Journal of Cell Science

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Glucose transporter 4 (GLUT4; also known as SLC2A4) resides on intracellular vesicles in muscle and adipose cells, and translocates to the plasma membrane in response to insulin. The phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K)-Akt signaling pathway plays a major role in GLUT4 translocation; however, a challenge has been to unravel the potentially distinct contributions of PI3K and Akt (of which there are three isoforms, Akt1-Akt3) to overall insulin action. Here, we describe new optogenetic tools based on CRY2 and the N-terminus of CIB1 (CIBN). We used these 'Opto' modules to activate PI3K and Akt selectively in time and space in 3T3-L1 adipocytes. We validated these tools using biochemical assays and performed live-cell kinetic analyses of IRAP-pHluorin translocation (IRAP is also known as LNPEP and acts as a surrogate marker for GLUT4 here). Strikingly, Opto-PIP 3 largely mimicked the maximal effects of insulin stimulation, whereas Opto-Akt only partially triggered translocation. Conversely, drug-mediated inhibition of Akt only partially dampened the translocation response of Opto-PIP 3 . In spatial optogenetic studies, focal targeting of Akt to a region of the cell marked the sites where IRAP-pHluorin vesicles fused, supporting the idea that local Aktmediated signaling regulates exocytosis. Taken together, these results indicate that PI3K and Akt play distinct roles, and that PI3K stimulates Akt-independent pathways that are important for GLUT4 translocation.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Optogenetic activation reveals distinct roles of PIP3 and Akt in adipocyte insulin action

Nan

Fan

et al. 2016

Journal of Cell Science

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“…To dissect these multiple roles, we must develop tools that allow us to control the recruitment and activation process. One promising technique for achieving this goal is through optogenetics (1). Optogenetics involves the engineering and application of optically controlled, genetically encoded proteins and is transforming the fields of neuro-and cell biology (2,3).…”

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confidence: 99%

Investigations of human myosin VI targeting using optogenetically controlled cargo loading

French

Sosnick

Rock

2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Myosins play countless critical roles in the cell, each requiring it to be activated at a specific location and time. To control myosin VI with this specificity, we created an optogenetic tool for activating myosin VI by fusing the light-sensitive Avena sativa phototropin1 LOV2 domain to a peptide from Dab2 (LOVDab), a myosin VI cargo protein. Our approach harnesses the native targeting and activation mechanism of myosin VI, allowing direct inferences on myosin VI function. LOVDab robustly recruits human full-length myosin VI to various organelles in vivo and hinders peroxisome motion in a lightcontrollable manner. LOVDab also activates myosin VI in an in vitro gliding filament assay. Our data suggest that protein and lipid cargoes cooperate to activate myosin VI, allowing myosin VI to integrate Ca 2+, lipid, and protein cargo signals in the cell to deploy in a site-specific manner.otor proteins play countless roles in biology, each requiring the motor to be recruited and activated at a particular time and place inside the cell. To dissect these multiple roles, we must develop tools that allow us to control the recruitment and activation process. One promising technique for achieving this goal is through optogenetics (1). Optogenetics involves the engineering and application of optically controlled, genetically encoded proteins and is transforming the fields of neuro-and cell biology (2, 3). A major benefit of optogenetics is that proteins are activated using light, which allows for high temporal and spatial control over a protein of interest.Myosin VI is a motor protein whose study could particularly benefit from optogenetic control. It is the only myosin known to walk toward the pointed end of actin filaments (4, 5). This property enables it to perform a diverse array of cellular functions, including cell division, endosome trafficking, autophagy, and Golgi and plasma membrane anchoring (6-9). Myosin VI is also autoinhibited, a property that is commonly found in other myosins (10). When myosin VI binds to cargo through specialized adaptor proteins, this autoinhibition is relieved through a poorly understood mechanism likely involving the disruption of an interaction between its cargo binding domain (CBD) and the myosin head (11,12). Dissociation of the CBD from the head both frees the head to bind tightly to actin and exposes dimerization sites throughout the tail domain of myosin VI, allowing it to become a processive dimer (13-15). In some cases, myosin VI could conceivably function as a monomer, for example when fulfilling its role as a membrane tether during spermatid individualization (16). If this is the case, more work is needed to elucidate the cellular signals that determine its oligomeric state at each site of action.Myosin VI has two classes of cargo proteins that bind to distinct, conserved motifs on the myosin VI C terminus (17). Disabled2, or Dab2, belongs to the class of cargo proteins that bind to a conserved WWY site on myosin (18). Optineurin (OPTN) is a member of the second class that binds ...

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“…Photodissociation introduces the possibility of active control of protein-protein interactions with light. Because split GFPs transduce chromophore excitation to both photon emission and large structural changes, they can be both imaging reporters and optogenetic tools, allowing for additional applications in tracking and delivering small molecules or photocaging enzyme activities using genetically encoded optical switches without relying on exogenous factors (8).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Mechanism and bottlenecks in strand photodissociation of split green fluorescent proteins (GFPs)

Lin

Both

et al. 2017

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Split GFPs have been widely applied for monitoring protein-protein interactions by expressing GFPs as two or more constituent parts linked to separate proteins that only fluoresce on complementing with one another. Although this complementation is typically irreversible, it has been shown previously that light accelerates dissociation of a noncovalently attached β-strand from a circularly permuted split GFP, allowing the interaction to be reversible. Reversible complementation is desirable, but photodissociation has too low of an efficiency (quantum yield <1%) to be useful as an optogenetic tool. Understanding the physical origins of this low efficiency can provide strategies to improve it. We elucidated the mechanism of strand photodissociation by measuring the dependence of its rate on light intensity and point mutations. The results show that strand photodissociation is a two-step process involving light-activated cis-trans isomerization of the chromophore followed by light-independent strand dissociation. The dependence of the rate on temperature was then used to establish a potential energy surface (PES) diagram along the photodissociation reaction coordinate. The resulting energetics-function model reveals the rate-limiting process to be the transition from the electronic excited-state to the ground-state PES accompanying cis-trans isomerization. Comparisons between split GFPs and other photosensory proteins, like photoactive yellow protein and rhodopsin, provide potential strategies for improving the photodissociation quantum yield.split GFP | potential energy surface | photodissociation | cis-trans isomerization | photosensory protein O ptical techniques for investigating biological processes in vivo can achieve subcellular spatial and millisecond temporal resolution by using genetically encoded light-responsive proteins (1). Photoactivatable proteins are used as either imaging tools, such as reversibly photoswitchable fluorescent proteins (RSFPs), with fluorescence that can be modulated by light (2) or optogenetic switches that convert light input into physiological outputs, such as channelrhodopsins, which can regulate ion flow through membranes in response to light (3). Split GFPs have been widely applied for imaging as fluorescent reporters of cellular processes, because they are small (∼25 kDa), are stable in cytosol, produce chromophores autocatalytically, and are amenable to mutation and circular permutation (4). Typically, the protein is expressed as two or more constituent parts linked to separate proteins that only fluoresce on complementing with one another, offering readouts of protein-protein colocalizaton with low background and high specificity (5). However, this technique can generate misleading results, because the GFP complexes, after being formed and fluorescing, are bound irreversibly, which can be highly perturbative to the processes being studied, especially if the protein interaction being probed is ordinarily reversible (6). Although split GFP complexes essentially do not dissocia...

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How to control proteins with light in living systems

Cited by 229 publications

References 103 publications

Optogenetic activation reveals distinct roles of PIP3 and Akt in adipocyte insulin action

Optogenetic activation reveals distinct roles of PIP3 and Akt in adipocyte insulin action

Investigations of human myosin VI targeting using optogenetically controlled cargo loading

Mechanism and bottlenecks in strand photodissociation of split green fluorescent proteins (GFPs)

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