Department of Synthetic Biology and Immunology, National Institute of Chemistry, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
Institute of Cell Biology, Faculty of Medicine, University of Ljubljana, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia.
ACS Nano. 2024 Jul 2;18(26):16692-16700. doi: 10.1021/acsnano.4c01498. Epub 2024 Jun 18.
Gas vesicles (GVs) are large cylindrical gas-filled protein assemblies found in diverse aquatic bacteria that enable their adaptation of buoyancy. GVs have already been used as ultrasound contrasting agents. Here, we investigate GVs derived from , aiming to minimize the number of accessory Gvps within the GV gene cluster and demonstrate the use of GVs as enhancers of acoustic radiation force administered by ultrasound. Three (, , and ) out of 11 genes in the cluster were found to be dispensable for functional GV formation, and their omission resulted in narrower GVs. Two essential proteins GvpJ and GvpN were absent from recently determined GV structures, but GvpJ was nevertheless found to be tightly bound to the cylindrical part of GVs in this study. Additionally, the N-terminus of GvpN was observed to play an important role in the formation of mature GVs. The binding of engineered GvpC from to HEK293 cells via integrins enhanced the acoustic force delivered by ultrasound and resulted in an increased Ca influx into cells. Coupling with a synthetic Ca-dependent signaling pathway GVs efficiently enhanced cell stimulation by ultrasound, which expands the potentials of noninvasive sonogenetics cell stimulation.
气室(GVs)是在各种水生细菌中发现的大型圆柱形充气蛋白组装体,使它们能够适应浮力。GVs 已被用作超声对比剂。在这里,我们研究了 衍生的 GVs,旨在最大限度地减少 GV 基因簇内辅助 Gvps 的数量,并展示 GVs 作为超声施加的声辐射力增强剂的用途。在该簇的 11 个基因中,有 3 个( , ,和 )被发现对于功能性 GV 形成是可有可无的,它们的缺失导致 GV 变窄。最近确定的 GV 结构中缺少两个必需的蛋白质 GvpJ 和 GvpN,但在本研究中仍发现 GvpJ 紧密结合在 GVs 的圆柱形部分。此外,观察到 GvpN 的 N 端在成熟 GV 的形成中起重要作用。通过整合素将来自 的工程化 GvpC 结合到 HEK293 细胞中增强了超声传递的声力,并导致细胞内 Ca 流入增加。与合成的 Ca 依赖性信号通路偶联,GVs 有效地增强了超声对细胞的刺激,这扩展了非侵入性声遗传学细胞刺激的潜力。