New tools for spatiotemporally manipulating and measuring pH in living cells

Abstract

At the population level, increased intracellular pH (pHi) has been shown to enable cell cycle progression, cell migration, and stem-cell differentiation. However, mechanistic understanding of how pHi regulates single-cell behaviors is limited because we lack tools to directly, specifically, and spatiotemporally manipulate pHi in single, living cells. Furthermore, the role for spatiotemporal pHi dynamics in these processes is unclear because we lack bright, photostable, and red-shifted fluorescent protein biosensors amenable to long term imaging.