New optogenetic tool for controlling neuronal signalling by blue light

Published in Nature Communications, Successfully inducing cell differentiation by light through the use of light-inducible receptor tyrosine kinases

• Ministry of Science, ICT and Future Planning* together with the Institute for Basic Science** (IBS), the main organization of the International Science and Business Belt project in South Korea, have announced that a group of researchers, led by Professor Won Do Heo, have developed a new technology in the field of optogenetics that can remotely control specific receptors by light. They have named this new technology “OptoTrk” and it has succeeded with neuronal differentiation inducement. Won Do Heo is both a group leader for the Center for Cognition and Sociality*** and a professor for the Department of Biological Sciences at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST).  

*Minister, Mun-kee Choi    ** Acting IBS president, Hee-Sup Shin
 *** Director, Hee-Sup Shin

• Professor Won Do Heo who led the research says, “We are now conducting neuroscience research on several mouse models using our OptoTrk technology. This newly developed technology will play a ground-breaking role in investigating the functions of neurons in the brain, specifically those functions in the most complicated of neural networks, which existing technologies have limitations exploring.

• The research outcomes were published online, June 4th, in Nature’s sister journal, Nature Communications (Impact Factor of 10.015; top 5.35% according to JCR rankings).

* Title of Paper: Light-inducible receptor tyrosine kinases that regulate neurotrophin signalling
* First Author: Ki-Young Chang, research fellow of the Center for Cognition and Sociality & Doyeon Woo PhD student in the Department of Biological Sciences at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)
* Corresponding Author: Won Do Heo, both a group leader for the Center for Cognition and Sociality and an associate professor for the Department of Biological Sciences at the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST)

• The most significant feature of OptoTrk technology is that it requires only light to activate neuronal functions without the need of other substances. The receptors are activated when exposed to blue light, and then induce both neuronal growth and differentiation by upregulating downstream cell signalling.

• Before the development of this new technology, natural ligands or agonists were widely used as tools to specifically control receptor activity. However, they did not allow spatiotemporal control, and so required a time period to bind with the receptor. Therefore, there were limits to understanding the dynamic nature of intracellular signalling networks.
 

    • To address these limitations, the researchers developed this new technology using optogenetics. Recently optogenetics is attracting attention from many, various fields in the biological sciences. This study applies light-sensitive proteins - found in microorganisms and plants - to human (and/or animal) cells and can manipulate several cell functions. 

     •Professor Won Do Heo, says, “We have found that optoTrk can be regulated by simply switching light on and off. We were able to control the functional duration of down-stream signalling by adjusting the frequency of blue-light illumination. Therefore, we have verified that our optogenetics tool can induce cell differentiation, and this is a great achievement.”

• Professor Won Do Heo added that he plans to publish an additional paper related to source technology in another renowned journal by the end of June. This will bring the Professor’s number of published research outcomes related to the study of optogenetics to a total of 3 in the last two months. These publications include the paper regarding “Light-Activated Reversible Inhibition by Assembled Trap (LARIAT)”. This paper on LARIAT was published in May in the prominent science journal, Nature Method, in the field of biochemistry.