Comparative characteristics of two anion-channel rhodopsins and prospects of their use in optogenetics

• Published in: Doklady. Biochemistry and biophysics Vol. 471; no. 1; pp. 440 - 442
• Main Authors: Dolgikh, D. A., Malyshev, A. Yu, Roshchin, M. V., Smirnova, G. R., Nekrasova, O. V., Petrovskaya, L. E., Feldman, T. B., Balaban, P. M., Kirpichnikov, M. P., Ostrovsky, M. A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Moscow Pleiades Publishing 01.11.2016; Springer Nature B.V
• Subjects: Animals; Biochemistry; Biological and Medical Physics; Biomedical and Life Sciences; Biophysics; Cerebral Cortex - physiology; Cerebral Cortex - radiation effects; Electroporation; Eyes & eyesight; Life Sciences; Light; Membrane Potentials - physiology; Membrane Potentials - radiation effects; Molecular Biology; Neurons; Neurons - physiology; Neurons - radiation effects; Optogenetics - methods; Patch-Clamp Techniques; Protein expression; Rats; Retina; Rhodopsin - genetics; Rhodopsin - metabolism; Rodents; Tissue Culture Techniques; Voltage-Dependent Anion Channel 2 - genetics; Voltage-Dependent Anion Channel 2 - metabolism
• ISSN: 1607-6729; 1608-3091
• DOI: 10.1134/S160767291606017X

Anion-selective opsins slow ChloC and ACR2 were expressed in rat brain cortical neurons by electroporation in utero. It is shown that the light-activated channel ACR2 has pronounced advantages in terms of both the inactivation kinetics and the neuron inhibition intensity, which is associated with a more negative value of the light-activated current reversal potential compared to the slow ChloC channel. The identified properties of opsin ACR2 indicate that it can be used for strictly controlled suppression of neuronal activity in optogenetic experiments, including the expression in the retinal ganglionic cells for reconstituting the OFF-component of their receptive field, which is essential for optogenetic prosthetics of degenerative retina.