optogenetics

optogenetics, experimental method in biological research involving the combination of optics and genetics in technologies that are designed to control (by eliciting or inhibiting) well-defined events in cells of living animal tissue. Unlike previously developed experimental methods of light control, optogenetics allows researchers to use light to turn cells on or off with remarkable precision and resolution (down to individual cells or even regions of cells) in living, freely moving animals. As a result, it can be used not only to control specific behaviours in animals, such as triggering or blocking fear or pain responses, but also to thereby deduce the contributions of individual cells to those behaviours.

Optogenetics was developed over the period from 2004 to 2009. Researchers in thousands of laboratories worldwide subsequently began using optogenetics, and thousands of scientific findings have been published with the method—chiefly in neuroscience but also in other fields. Indeed, optogenetics has been used for studying not only the brain but also cardiac tissue, stem cells, and the development of organisms.

Technologies of optogenetics

Optogenetics technology works in several steps. First, special genes from single-celled organisms (e.g., certain algae and bacteria) are adapted for use as tools to study specific behaviours in animals (typically mice). These single genes, known as microbial opsins, produce proteins that function as light-sensitive ion channels or pumps, activating or inhibiting the production of electrical current in cells by directing the movement of charged ions (e.g., protons or chloride ions) across the cell membrane in response to light. Second, advanced genetics tools are used to target the opsin genes to certain cells. Targeting ensures that the genes’ products (opsin proteins) are made only in specific kinds of cells. For example, cells in the brain that are not targeted to receive opsin genes will not produce opsin proteins; thus, the nontargeted brain cells will remain unresponsive to direct light. Third, advanced optics are used to aim precisely timed pulses of light at specific tissue regions or cells. Ideally, this is performed while the experimental subject carries out a behaviour of interest. The light pulses stimulate the opsin genes, resulting in the production of electrical current in the targeted cells. Depending on the kind of opsin used, the electrical current either activates or inhibits the targeted cells. Researchers can then determine whether specific kinds of electrical activity in cells produce the behaviour of interest and, if so, how.

Many microbial opsins have been discovered in nature, and some of them have been genetically engineered in the laboratory. Scientists have also successfully synthesized novel opsins. Engineered and synthesized opsins are designed to be faster or slower than their naturally occurring counterparts and may have different ion conductance properties or different colour (light wavelength) responsivity. The naturally occurring bacteriorhodopsins (which move protons out of the cell) and the naturally occurring halorhodopsins (which move chloride ions into the cell) are inhibitory in neural systems. Both of these opsins are pumps (they require energy to move ions against chemical or electrical gradients), and the electrical currents they produce make it harder for neurons to fire. By contrast, the naturally occurring channelrhodopsins—which, as their name suggests, are channels (allowing positively charged ions to flow freely through the opsin pore)—usually are excitatory.

Because inhibitory opsin channels are the fastest and most-sensitive means to light control, intense efforts were made to find or create an inhibitory channelrhodopsin. A key breakthrough came in 2012, when a high-resolution crystal structure of channelrhodopsin was obtained; knowledge of this structure allowed scientists to engineer the opsin channel pore to create an inhibitory chloride-conducting channel. Biochemical control (instead of electrical control) is also possible. Beginning in 2009, optogenetics was extended to the control of specific biochemical events, thus opening the door to optogenetic control of any cell type.

Light delivery is usually achieved with a fibre-optic interface, which can target with versatility cell types (as opposed to individual cells) within deep brain structures. Other light-guidance strategies allow single cells to be targeted in the living, intact mammalian brain; such methods are based on advanced optics (e.g., holographic techniques and powerful lasers). However, the light-power requirements associated with targeting large numbers of individually specified cells can be a disadvantage. The most common methods for optogenetic control of cell types (e.g., fibre-optic interfaces) are, by comparison, relatively simple and inexpensive and are widely used together with genetic opsin-targeting methods, which use biological materials such as viruses to enable opsin production in the targeted populations.

Applications of optogenetics

Optogenetic methods have been applied to a broad range of questions in behaviour and physiology, providing insight into movement, navigation, learning, memory, metabolism, hunger, thirst, respiration, sleep, blood pressure, reward, motivation, fear, and sensory processing. Clinically inspired discoveries have also been made, helping to shed light on cellular activities associated with conditions such as epilepsy, Parkinson disease, Huntington disease, stroke, chronic pain, obsessive-compulsive disorder, drug addiction, depression, social dysfunction, and anxiety. For example, optogenetics made it possible to determine which cells and connections across the brain were important in defining and assembling the different features of anxiety, including respiratory-rate changes and risk avoidance, into a distinct behavioral state. The emergence of optogenetics as a research tool also helped give impetus to large, national-scale brain-research projects, including the Brain Research Through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative, which was launched in the United States in 2013.