Abstract
In this issue, Hou et al. (1) introduce an elegant method for measuring the absolute voltage across a cell membrane with an accuracy of 10 mV. Their study presents an incisive approach to voltage imaging in which the voltage value is encoded in the temporal dynamics of fluorescence rather than in the raw fluorescence intensity. Together with an engineered microbial rhodopsin with properties amenable to the approach, the method provides a genetically encoded optical read-out independent of the reporter’s expression level and insensitive to variations in common experimental parameters. Their work presents a conceptually new avenue toward developing probes for membrane voltage useful for myriad systems from bacteria to mammalian tissue.
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