Optical Control of a Biological Reaction-Diffusion System

Glock, Philipp; Broichhagen, Johannes; Kretschmer, Simon; Blumhardt, Philipp; Mücksch, Jonas; Trauner, Dirk und Schwille, Petra (2018): Optical Control of a Biological Reaction-Diffusion System. In: Angewandte Chemie-International Edition, Bd. 57, Nr. 9: S. 2362-2366

Abstract

Patterns formed by reaction and diffusion are the foundation for many phenomena in biology. However, the experimental study of reaction-diffusion (R-D) systems has so far been dominated by chemical oscillators, for which many tools are available. In this work, we developed a photoswitch for the Min system of Escherichia coli, a versatile biological in vitro R-D system consisting of the antagonistic proteins MinD and MinE. A MinE-derived peptide of 19 amino acids was covalently modified with a photoisomerizable crosslinker based on azobenzene to externally control peptide-mediated depletion of MinD from the membrane. In addition to providing an on-off switch for pattern formation, we achieve frequency-locked resonance with a precise 2D spatial memory, thus allowing new insights into Min protein action on the membrane. Taken together, we provide a tool to study phenomena in pattern formation using biological agents.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Chemie und Pharmazie > Department Chemie
• Themengebiete: 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 540 Chemie
• ISSN: 1433-7851
• Sprache: Englisch