Optical Control of a Biological Reaction-Diffusion System.

Philipp Glock, Johannes Broichhagen, Simon Kretschmer, Philipp Blumhardt, Jonas Mücksch, Dirk Trauner, Petra Schwille

Journal: Angewandte Chemie (International ed. in English) 2019;57(9):2362-2366

PMID: 29266672

Abstract

Patterns formed by reaction and diffusion are the foundation for many phenomena in biology. However, the experimental study of reaction-diffusion (R-D) systems has so far been dominated by chemical oscillators, for which many tools are available. In this work, we developed a photoswitch for the Min system of Escherichia coli, a versatile biological in vitro R-D system consisting of the antagonistic proteins MinD and MinE. A MinE-derived peptide of 19 amino acids was covalently modified with a photoisomerizable crosslinker based on azobenzene to externally control peptide-mediated depletion of MinD from the membrane. In addition to providing an on-off switch for pattern formation, we achieve frequency-locked resonance with a precise 2D spatial memory, thus allowing new insights into Min protein action on the membrane. Taken together, we provide a tool to study phenomena in pattern formation using biological agents.

Address: Cellular and Molecular Biophysics, Max Planck Institute of Biochemistry, Am Klopferspitz 18, 82152, Martinsried, Germany.; Department of Chemistry, Ludwig Maximilians University of Munich, Butenandtstr. 5-13, 81377, Munich, Germany.; Current address: Department of Chemical Biology, Max Planck Institute for Medical Research, Jahnstr. 29, 69120, Heidelberg, Germany.; Current address: Department of Chemistry, Silver Center for Arts and Science, New York University, 100 Washington Square East, New York, NY, 10003, USA.

DOI: 10.1002/anie.201712002

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https://doi.org/10.1002/anie.201712002

MeSH Terms: Diffusion, Escherichia coli, Escherichia coli Proteins, Optical Devices