Department of Medical Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, School of Medicine, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510632, China.
Department of Critical Care Medicine, The First Affiliated Hospital, Jinan University, Guangzhou, Guangdong 510632, China.
ACS Nano. 2024 Jun 4;18(22):14123-14144. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.4c00698. Epub 2024 May 20.
Optogenetic, known as the method of 21 centuries, combines optic and genetic engineering to precisely control photosensitive proteins for manipulation of a broad range of cellular functions, such as flux of ions, protein oligomerization and dissociation, cellular intercommunication, and so on. In this technique, light is conventionally delivered to targeted cells through optical fibers or micro light-emitting diodes, always suffering from high invasiveness, wide-field illumination facula, strong absorption, and scattering by nontargeted endogenous substance. Light-transducing nanomaterials with advantages of high spatiotemporal resolution, abundant wireless-excitation manners, and easy functionalization for recognition of specific cells, recently have been widely explored in the field of optogenetics; however, there remain a few challenges to restrain its clinical applications. This review summarized recent progress on light-responsive genetically encoded proteins and the myriad of activation strategies by use of light-transducing nanomaterials and their disease-treatment applications, which is expected for sparking helpful thought to push forward its preclinical and translational uses.
光遗传学被称为 21 世纪的方法，它结合了光学和基因工程，精确地控制光敏蛋白，从而操纵广泛的细胞功能，如离子通量、蛋白质寡聚和解离、细胞间通讯等。在该技术中，光通常通过光纤或微发光二极管传递到靶向细胞，但是光纤或微发光二极管一直存在高侵入性、宽场照明光斑、强吸收和非靶向内源性物质散射等问题。具有高时空分辨率、丰富的无线激发方式和易于功能化以识别特定细胞等优点的光转导纳米材料，最近在光遗传学领域得到了广泛的探索；然而，其临床应用仍存在一些挑战。本文综述了近年来光响应遗传编码蛋白的研究进展，以及利用光转导纳米材料的多种激活策略及其在疾病治疗中的应用，希望能为推动其临床前和转化应用提供有益的思路。
