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Natural Resources for Optogenetic Tools

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Optogenetics

Part of the book series: Methods in Molecular Biology ((MIMB,volume 1408))

Abstract

Photoreceptors are found in all kingdoms of life and mediate crucial responses to environmental challenges. Nature has evolved various types of photoresponsive protein structures with different chromophores and signaling concepts for their given purpose. The abundance of these signaling proteins as found nowadays by (meta-)genomic screens enriched the palette of optogenetic tools significantly. In addition, molecular insights into signal transduction mechanisms and design principles from biophysical studies and from structural and mechanistic comparison of homologous proteins opened seemingly unlimited possibilities for customizing the naturally occurring proteins for a given optogenetic task. Here, a brief overview on the photoreceptor concepts already established as optogenetic tools in natural or engineered form, their photochemistry and their signaling/design principles is given. Finally, so far not regarded photosensitive modules and protein architectures with potential for optogenetic application are described.

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Acknowledgments

I would like to thank John Kennis and Peter Hegemann for generous support over the last years.

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  1. Department of Exact Sciences/Biophysics, Vrije Universiteit, De Boelelaan 1081A, 1081 HV, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Tilo Mathes

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  1. Tilo Mathes
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Correspondence to Tilo Mathes .

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  1. University of Bielefeld, Dept of Cellular & Dev Biology of Plants, Bielefeld, Germany

    Arash Kianianmomeni

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Mathes, T. (2016). Natural Resources for Optogenetic Tools. In: Kianianmomeni, A. (eds) Optogenetics. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1408. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3512-3_2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-3512-3_2

  • Published:

  • Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY

  • Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-3510-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-3512-3

  • eBook Packages: Springer Protocols

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