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Optogenetics pp 141-165 | Cite as

Enhancing Channelrhodopsins: An Overview

Protocol
First Online:
Part of the Methods in Molecular Biology book series (MIMB, volume 1408)

Abstract

After the discovery of Channelrhodopsin, a light-gated ion channel, only a few people saw the diverse range of applications for such a protein. Now, more than 10 years later Channelrhodopsins have become widely accepted as the ultimate tool to control the membrane potential of excitable cells via illumination. The demand for more application-specific Channelrhodopsin variants started a race between protein engineers to design improved variants. Even though many engineered variants have undisputable advantages compared to wild-type variants, many users are alienated by the tremendous amount of new variants and their perplexing names.

Here, we review new variants whose efficacy has already been proven in neurophysiological experiments, or variants which are likely to extend the optogenetic toolbox. Variants are described based on their mechanistic and operational properties in terms of expression, kinetics, ion selectivity, and wavelength responsivity.

Key words

Optogenetics Channelrhodopsins Protein engineering User guide Microbial rhodopsin 
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Notes

Acknowledgments

We thank our colleagues for providing action spectra of selected ChRs: Franziska Schneider (C1V1, C1V1-E122T–E162T), Christiane Grimm (ReaChR), and Johannes Vierock (CsChrimson). We are also in debt to Mathias Mahn, Simon Wiegert, Yoav Printz, Kirstin Eisenhauer, and Tess Oram for proofreading the manuscript and fruitful discussion.

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© Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016

Authors and Affiliations

  1. 1.Experimental BiophysicsHumboldt University BerlinBerlinGermany
  2. 2.Department of NeurobiologyWeizmann Institute of ScienceRehovotIsrael

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