Abstract
In this issue of the Biophysical Journal, Venkatachalam and Cohen (1) present an innovative combination of opsin-based optogenetic voltage control with simultaneous imaging of green fluorescent protein (GFP)-based sensors. The challenge is that the overlapping absorption spectra of GFP derivatives and the commonly used blue-light activated ChR2-based channelrhodopsins prevent photoactivation of neuron firing without simultaneously perturbing the fluorescent reporter. The authors elegantly circumvent this overlap by taking advantage of the color-sensitive photoreactions of spectral intermediates of ChR2. An interesting twist is that in the “stoplight” technique that they developed, optical engineering creatively mimics nature. Evolution produced a mechanism using the same principle to enable color-discriminating motility responses mediated by the phototaxis receptor sensory rhodopsin I in haloarchaea.
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