Membraneless organelles (MLOs) formed via protein phase separation have garnered significant attention recently due to their relevance to cellular physiology and pathology. However, there is a lack of tools available to study their behavior and control their bioactivity in complex biological systems. This chapter describes a new optogenetic tool based on water-soluble chlorophyll protein (WSCP), a red light-induced singlet oxygen-generating protein, to control synthetic MLOs. Upon exposure to red light, WSCP generates singlet oxygen, which triggers the crosslinking of the proteins in the MLOs, resulting in their liquid-to-solid phase transition. The effective delivery of chlorophylls enables the successful reconstitution of WSCP in living cells, thus offering a potential approach to biological regulation at the subcellular level.

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Chlorophyll-Based Optogenetics to Control Membraneless Organelles

  • Manjia Li,
  • Byung Min Park,
  • Zhaoxia Li,
  • Weiqi Huang,
  • Fei Sun

摘要

Membraneless organelles (MLOs) formed via protein phase separation have garnered significant attention recently due to their relevance to cellular physiology and pathology. However, there is a lack of tools available to study their behavior and control their bioactivity in complex biological systems. This chapter describes a new optogenetic tool based on water-soluble chlorophyll protein (WSCP), a red light-induced singlet oxygen-generating protein, to control synthetic MLOs. Upon exposure to red light, WSCP generates singlet oxygen, which triggers the crosslinking of the proteins in the MLOs, resulting in their liquid-to-solid phase transition. The effective delivery of chlorophylls enables the successful reconstitution of WSCP in living cells, thus offering a potential approach to biological regulation at the subcellular level.