News and Conferences: J. Biophoton. 4/2010

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2010
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 124 KB
• Volume: 3
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1864-063X
• DOI: 10.1002/jbio.201000510

✦ Synopsis

Raleigh (NC/USA) -In order to understand regulation of intracellular processes, tools are required that mimic the degree of spatiotemporal control found in nature. W. E. Georgianna, and A. Deiters from North Carolina State University report on a genetically encoded system based on a photoswitchable protein dimerization that can be applied to the reversible photocontrol of protein translocation and cellular morphology in mammalian cells. A light-switchable transcriptional activator had been constructed from a protein-protein interaction module in the phytochrome signaling network of Arabidopsis thaliana: Upon exposure to red light, a chromophore covalently bound to PhyB undergoes a photoisomerization that enables PhyB to dimerize with phytochrome interaction factor (PIF). This interaction is reversed by infrared light. The PhyB-PIF pair can be fused to various protein domains.