Abstract
Optogenetics is a rapidly developing new technique that combines optical methods with techniques that are used in molecular biology. It can be used for monitoring various optical processes in cells and controlling their activity using light. The technique is based on bacterial opsin expression in mammalian neurons. In this review, the use of optogenetics for controlling the activity of specific neuronal populations in different regions of the human brain is considered in detail. The paper also presents information on light-sensitive proteins, genetically encoded optical instruments, and their use for activation or inhibition of neurons and investigation of the causal relationship between neural networks and pathological symptoms.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Adamantidis, A.R., Zhang, F., Aravanis, A.M., Deisseroth, K., et al., Neural substrates of awakening probed with optogenetic control of hypocretin neurons, Nature, 2007, vol. 450, pp. 420–424.
Airan, R.D., Thompson, K.R., Fenno, L.E., Bernstein, H., and Deisseroth, K., Temporally precise in vivo control of intracellular signaling, Nature, 2009, vol. 458, pp. 1025–1029.
Amos, W.B. and White, J.G., How the confocal laser scanning microscope entered biological research, Biol. Cell, 2003, vol. 85, pp. 335–342.
Arenkiel, B.R., Peca, J., Davison, I.G., Feliciano, C., et al., In vivo light-induced activation of neural circuitry in transgenic mice expressing channelrhodopsin-2, Neuron, 2007, vol. 54, pp. 205–218.
Bendtsen, J.D., Nielsen, H., von Heijne, G., and Brunak, S., Improved prediction of signal peptides, J. Mol. Biol., 2004, vol. 340, pp. 783–795.
Bi, A., Cui, J., Ma, Y.P., Olshevskaya, E., et al., Ectopic expression of a microbial-type rhodopsin restores visual responses in mice with photoreceptor degeneration, Neuron, 2006, vol. 50, pp. 23–33.
Chow, B.Y., Han, X., Dobry, A.S., Qian, X., et al., High-performance genetically targetable optical neural silencing by light-driven proton pumps, Nature, 2009, vol. 463, pp. 98–102.
Deisseroth, K., Etkin, A., and Malenka, R.C., Optogenetics and the circuit dynamics of psychiatric disease, JAMA, 2015, vol. 313, no. 20, pp. 2019–2020.
Deisseroth, K., Optogenetics, Nat. Methods, 2011, vol. 8, pp. 26–29.
Derby, M.C. and Gleeson, P.A., New insights into membrane trafficking and protein sorting, Int. Rev. Cytol., 2007, vol. 261, pp. 47–116.
Duschl, A., Lanyi, J.K., and Zimanyi, L., Anion binding to the chloride pump, halorhodopsin, and its implications for the transport mechanism, J. Biol. Chem., 1990, vol. 265, pp. 1261–1267.
Evans, C.L., Potma, E.O., Puoris’haag, M., Cote, D., et al., Chemical imaging of tissue in vivo with videorate coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A., 2005, vol. 102, pp. 16807–16812.
Figueiredo, M., Lane, S., Tang, F., Liu, B.-H., Hewinson, J., et al., Optogenetic experimentation on astrocytes, Exp. Physiol., 2010, vol. 96, pp. 40–50.
Gradinaru, V., Thompson, K.R., Zhang, F., Mogri, M., et al., Targeting and readout strategies for fast optical neural control in vitro and in vivo, J. Neurosci., 2007, vol. 27, no. 52, pp. 14231–14238.
Gradinaru, V., Thompson, K.R., and Deisseroth, K., eNpHR: A Natronomnas halorhodopsin enhanced for optogenetic applications, Brain Cell Biol., 2008, vol. 36, nos. 1–4, pp. 129–139.
Gradinaru, V., Mogri, M., Thompson, K.R., Henderson, J.M., and Deisseroth, K., Optical deconstruction of parkinsonian neural circuitry, Science, 2009, vol. 324, pp. 354–359.
Hardie, R.C. and Raghu, P., Visual transduction in Drosophila, Nature, 2001, vol. 413, pp. 186–193.
Hägglund, M., Borgius, L., Dougherty, K.J., and Kiehn, O., Activation of groups of excitatory neurons in the mammalian spinal cord or hindbrain evokes locomotion, Nat. Neurosci., 2010, vol. 13, pp. 246–252.
Hong, M., Fitzgerald, M.X., Harper, S., Luo, C., Speicher, D.W., and Marmorstein, R., Structural basis for dimerization in DNA recognition by Gal4, Structure, 2008, vol. 16, no. 7, pp. 1019–1026.
Iossifov, I., O’Roak, B.J., Sanders, S.J., Ronemus, M., Krumm, N., et al., The contribution of de novo coding mutations to autism spectrum disorder, Nature, 2014, vol. 515, no. 7526, pp. 216–221.
Kato, H.E., Zhang, F., Yizhar, O., Ramakrishnan, C., Nishizawa, T., et al., Crystal structure of the channelrhodopsin light-gated cation channel, Nature, 2012, vol. 482, pp. 369–374.
Kennedy, M.J., Hughes, R.M., Peteya, L.A., Schwartz, J.W., Ehlers, M.D., and Tucker, C.L., Rapid blue-light-mediated induction of protein interactions in living cells, Nat. Methods, 2010, vol. 7, no. 12, pp. 973–975.
Kienle, E., et al., A toolbox of Cre-dependent optogenetic transgenic mice for light-induced activation and silencing, Nat. Neurosci., 2012, vol. 15, pp. 793–802.
Kohl, M., Shipton, O., Deacon, R., Rawlins, J., Deisseroth, K., and Paulsen, O., Hemisphere-specific optogenetic stimulation reveals left-right asymmetry of hippocampal plasticity, Nat. Neurosci., 2011, vol. 14, pp. 1413–1415.
Krook-Magnuson, E., Armstrong, C., Oijala, M., and Soltesz, I., On-demand optogenetic control of spontaneous seizures in temporal lobe epilepsy, Nat. Commun., 2013, vol. 4, p. 1376.
Liu, X. and Davis, R.L., Insect olfactory memory in time and space, Curr. Opin. Neurobiol., 2006, vol. 16, pp. 679–685.
Llewellyn, M.E., Thompson, K.R., Deisseroth, K., and Delp, S.L., Orderly recruitment of motor units under optical control in vivo, Nat. Med., 2010, vol. 16, pp. 1161–1165.
Nagel, G., Szellas, T., Huhn, W., Kateriya, S., Adeishvili, N., et al., Channelrhodopsin-2 a directly lightgated cation-selective membrane channel, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 2003, vol. 100, no. 24, pp. 13940–13945.
Palczewski, K., G protein-coupled receptor rhodopsin, Annu. Rev. Biochem., 2006, vol. 75, pp. 743–767.
Paz, J., Davidson, T., Frechette, E., Delord, B., Parada, I., Peng, K., et al., Closed-loop optogenetic control of thalamus as a tool for interrupting seizures after cortical injury, Nat. Neurosci., 2013, vol. 16, pp. 64–70.
Petreanu, L., Huber, D., Sobczyk, A., and Svoboda, K., Channelrhodopsin-2–assisted circuit mapping of long-range callosal projections, Nat. Neurosci., 2007, vol. 10, pp. 663–668.
Richter, C.-P. and Tan, X., Photons and neurons, Hear. Res., 2014, vol. 311, pp. 72–88.
Shimizu-Sato, S., Huq, E., Tepperman, J.M., and Quail, P.H., A lightswitchable gene promoter system, Nat. Biotechnol., 2002, vol. 20, no. 10, pp. 1041–1044.
Tønnesen, J., Sørensen, A., Deisseroth, K., Lundberg, C., and Kokaia, M., Optogenetic control of epileptiform activity, Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A., 2009, vol. 106, pp. 12162–12167.
Tsai, H.C., Zhang, F., Adamantidis, A., Stuber, D.G., et al., Phasic firing in dopaminergic neurons is sufficient for behavioral condition, Science, 2009, vol. 324, no. 5930, pp. 1080–1084.
Wang, X., Chen, X., and Yang, Y., Spatiotemporal control of gene expression by a light-switchable transgene system, Nat. Methods, 2012, vol. 9, no. 3, pp. 266–269.
Yin, T. and Wu, Y., Guiding lights: recent developments in optogenetic control of biochemical signals, Pfluegers Arch., 2013, vol. 465, pp. 397–408.
Yizhar, O., Fenno, L.E., Davidson, T.J., Morgi, M., and Deisseroth, K., Optogenetics in neuronal systems, Neuron, 2011, vol. 71, pp. 9–34.
Zeng, H. and Madisen, L., Mouse transgenic approaches in optogenetics, Prog. Brain Res., 2012, vol. 196, pp. 193–213.
Zhao, S., Cunha, G., Zhang, F., Liu, Q., et al., Improved expression of halorhodopsin for lightinduced silencing of neuronal activity, Brain Cell Biol., 2008, vol. 36, nos. 1–4, pp. 141–154.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Original Russian Text © E.V. Borisova, E.A. Epifanova, S.A. Tutukova, V.A. Salina, A.A. Babaev, 2016, published in Molekulyarnaya Genetika, Mikrobiologiya i Virusologiya, 2016, No. 4, pp. 128–132.
About this article
Cite this article
Borisova, E.V., Epifanova, E.A., Tutukova, S.A. et al. Optogenetic approaches in neurobiology. Mol. Genet. Microbiol. Virol. 31, 203–207 (2016). https://doi.org/10.3103/S0891416816040029
Received:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.3103/S0891416816040029