Abstract
The discovery of optogenetics has revolutionized research in neuroscience by providing the tools for noninvasive, cell-type selective modulation of membrane potential and cellular function in vitro and in vivo. Rhodopsin-based optogenetics has later been introduced in experimental cardiology studies and used as a tool to photoactivate cardiac contractions or to identify the sites, timing, and location most effective for defibrillating impulses to interrupt cardiac arrhythmias. The exploitation of cell-selectivity of optogenetics, and the generation of model organisms with myocardial cell type targeted expression of opsins has started to yield novel and sometimes unexpected notions on myocardial biology. This review summarizes the main results, the different uses, and the prospective developments of cardiac optogenetics.
Highlights
Introduction of OptogeneticsIf you were seeking information on “optogenetics” in a biology, physiology, or even neuroscience textbook published roughly ten years ago, you would be left wanting
We have briefly covered the applications of optogenetics in the study of cardiac physiology and pathology
This summary is by no means comprehensive and we apologize to the many colleagues who contributed to the field but have not been cited
Summary
If you were seeking information on “optogenetics” in a biology, physiology, or even neuroscience textbook published roughly ten years ago, you would be left wanting. The recently coined word “optogenetics” summarizes the peculiar aspects of the methodology, which relies on the expression of microbial derived genes (-genetics) encoding one or more light-controlled ion channels or pumps (opsins) in the plasma membrane of a specific cell type. Optogenetics has primarily and most often been exploited in neuroscience to isolate (or interrogate) the function of specific neuronal types forming brain networks too densely juxtaposed to allow functional investigation with conventional methodologies. “neuron+optogenetics” returns more than 3000 out of the total number of pubmed hits of optogenetics While such abundant research has focused on the complex neuronal systems at the base of brain function, using various molecular tools, delivery strategies, and model systems [17], very little has comparatively been done to disentangle another intricated and vital cellular network, such as the heart
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