Optogenetics -- Combination switch turns neurons on and off
Friday, December 23, 2011 - 06:00
in Biology & Nature
(PhysOrg.com) -- Flies that display courtship behaviour at the press of a button, worms made to wriggle by remote control: since the dawn of optogenetics, scientists can turn nerve cells on and off using pulses of light. A research team at the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics in Frankfurt am Main has developed a molecular light switch that makes it possible to control cells more accurately than ever before. The combination switch consists of two different light-sensitive membrane proteins – one for on, the other for off. The method used by the scientists to connect the two components can be used with different protein variants, making it highly versatile.