Illuminating Spots

Imagine an engine made from millions of interconnected parts. To understand how it works, one way would be to pick out one part, break it, pop it back and see what happens – with the engine still running. Now imagine that engine’s a cell. This is the complicated and time-consuming challenge researchers face. Now, they present a quick and easy way to interfere with living cells using genome editing. In neurons, they genetically-engineered EB1 – a protein that binds cell scaffolding called microtubules – to make it light-sensitive. Exposing neurons to blue light made EB1 stop working. This caused microtubules in the growing ends of neurons to break down. Using fluorescence microscopy (pictured), they revealed that shining a spot of blue light on these genetically-engineered neurons (top) caused them to retract away from the spot in contrast to normal neurons (bottom). This illustrates the usefulness of this approach for rapid interventions in cell processes.

Written by Lux Fatimathas

Lux Fatimathas

Writer

Having pursued science through a career in research, communications and publishing, she is currently a writer and editor for a healthcare marketing agency and also juggles freelance science writing.

• Image from work by Alessandro Dema and colleagues
• Department of Cell and Tissue Biology, University of California, San Francisco, CA, USA
• Image originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife, January 2023