Janelia Research Campus, Howard Hughes Medical Institute, Ashburn, United States.
Elife. 2019 Aug 2;8:e45807. doi: 10.7554/eLife.45807.
The palette of tools for perturbation of neural activity is continually expanding. On the forefront of this expansion is magnetogenetics, where ion channels are genetically engineered to be closely coupled to the iron-storage protein ferritin. Initial reports on magnetogenetics have sparked a vigorous debate on the plausibility of physical mechanisms of ion channel activation by means of external magnetic fields. The criticism leveled against magnetogenetics as being physically implausible is based on the specific assumptions about the magnetic spin configurations of iron in ferritin. I consider here a wider range of possible spin configurations of iron in ferritin and the consequences these might have in magnetogenetics. I propose several new magneto-mechanical and magneto-thermal mechanisms of ion channel activation that may clarify some of the mysteries that presently challenge our understanding of the reported biological experiments. Finally, I present some additional puzzles that will require further theoretical and experimental investigation.
用于神经活动干扰的工具不断增多。在这个扩展的前沿是磁遗传学，其中离子通道被基因工程设计为与铁储存蛋白铁蛋白紧密偶联。磁遗传学的初步报告引发了一场关于外部磁场通过物理机制激活离子通道的合理性的激烈争论。对磁遗传学的批评认为其在物理上是不可信的，这是基于对铁蛋白中铁的磁自旋构型的具体假设。我在这里考虑铁蛋白中铁的自旋构型的更广泛的范围，以及这些可能在磁遗传学中的后果。我提出了几种新的离子通道激活的磁机械和磁热机制，这可能会澄清目前挑战我们对报道的生物学实验的理解的一些谜团。最后，我提出了一些需要进一步的理论和实验研究的其他难题。
