AsianScientist (Jun 27, 2014) – Researchers at the Institute for Basic Science (IBS) in South Korea have successfully developed the world’s first technology to control specific protein functions in living cells by using light, which may be useful in future cancer cell research.
Studying the function of protein in cells has relied on genetic approaches or small-molecule drugs to inhibit protein function. However, some proteins cannot be studied using genetic approaches because the lack of the gene in early embryonic development results in death. On the other hand, small-molecule drugs have been useful in studying protein function in adult organisms, but do not allow researchers to study highly localized effects and are poorly reversible.
The Bio-imaging Research Group, led by Dr. Heo Won Do, group leader at the Center for Cognition and Sociality and professor at the College of Life Science and Bioengineering at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), has developed the technology that overcomes these challenges named Light-Activated Reversible Inhibition by Assembled Trap (LARIAT).
The LARIAT system makes use of the light-sensitive protein cryptochrome 2 (CRY2), which forms clusters with the protein CIB1 in the presence of blue light. Proteins physically linked to CRY2 are also drawn into the cluster, thereby inactivating them. This method provides researchers with a reversible and tunable way to control protein functions without the use of chemicals or genetic modification.
By linking CRY2 with a single-domain antibody against the green fluorescent protein (GFP), LARIAT can be used control the function of any protein tagged with GFP. As a proof-of-concept, the authors demonstrated that they were able to inactivate critical biological phenomena, including cell migration and cell division, by using LARIAT in conjunction with GFP-tagged target proteins.
The authors of the study hope that this technology can be applied in future cancer cell and signal transduction research.
“We are already conducting research on the spread of cancer, as well as brain science in animal models with the LARIAT technology,” Prof. Heo says. “I believe this technology will be a breakthrough in investigating cancer treatments and the function of neurons in a complex neural network, which existing technologies have not been able to do.”
The article can be found at: Lee et al. (2014) Reversible Protein Inactivation by Optogenetic Trapping in Cells.
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Source: Institute of Basic Science.
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