Light-regulated allosteric switch enables temporal and subcellular control of enzyme activity

Abstract

Engineered allosteric regulation of protein activity provides significant advantages for the development of robust and broadly applicable tools. However, the application of allosteric switches in optogenetics has been scarce and suffers from critical limitations. Here, we report an optogenetic approach that utilizes an engineered Light-Regulated (LightR) allosteric switch module to achieve tight spatiotemporal control of enzymatic activity. Using the tyrosine kinase Src as a model, we demonstrate efficient regulation of the kinase and identify temporally distinct signaling responses ranging from seconds to minutes. LightR-Src off-kinetics can be tuned by modulating the LightR photoconversion cycle. A fast cycling variant enables the stimulation of transient pulses and local regulation of activity in a selected region of a cell. The design of the LightR module ensures broad applicability of the tool, as we demonstrate by achieving light-mediated regulation of Abl and bRaf kinases as well as Cre recombinase.

Document Details

Document Type
Pub Defense Publication
Publication Date
Sep 23, 2020
Source ID
10.7554/elife.60647

Entities

People

  • Anastasia Zhurikhina
  • Andrei V Karginov
  • Cameron T Flower
  • Denis Tsygankov
  • Forest M. White
  • Jacob Matsche
  • Jalees Rehman
  • Jason E Conage-Pough
  • Jordan Fauser
  • Mark Shaaya
  • Martin Brennan
  • Pradeep Kota
  • Shahzeb Khan
  • Vincent Huyot
  • Viswanathan Natarajan

Organizations

  • Army Research Office
  • Georgia Tech
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology
  • National Institutes of Health
  • University of Illinois Urbana–Champaign
  • University of Illinois at Chicago
  • University of North Carolina

Tags

Fields of Study

  • Biology

Readers

  • Distributed Systems and Data Platform Development
  • Molecular Biology and Genetics
  • Neuroscience