Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Brief Communication
  • Published:

Light-based feedback for controlling intracellular signaling dynamics

Nature Methods volume 8, pages 837–839 (2011)Cite this article

Subjects

Abstract

The ability to apply precise inputs to signaling species in live cells would be transformative for interrogating and understanding complex cell-signaling systems. Here we report an 'optogenetic' method for applying custom signaling inputs using feedback control of a light-gated protein-protein interaction. We applied this strategy to perturb protein localization and phosphoinositide 3-kinase activity, generating time-varying signals and clamping signals to buffer against cell-to-cell variability or changes in pathway activity.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Feedback control to modulate plasma-membrane recruitment of PIF-tagged inputs.
Figure 2: Feedback control can decrease cell-to-cell variability in the optogenetic response.
Figure 3: Feedback control can clamp PIP3 levels against cellular perturbations.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Mettetal, J.T., Muzzey, D., Gomez-Uribe, C. & van Oudenaarden, A. Science 319, 482–484 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Muzzey, D., Gómez-Uribe, C.A., Mettetal, J.T. & van Oudenaarden, A. Cell 138, 160–171 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Shimizu, T.S., Tu, Y. & Berg, H.C. Mol. Syst. Biol. 6, 382 (2010).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Hodgkin, A.L., Huxley, A.F. & Katz, B. J. Physiol. (Lond.) 116, 424–448 (1952).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Visscher, K., Schnitzer, M.J. & Block, S.M. Nature 400, 184–189 (1999).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  6. Rockwell, N.C., Su, Y.S. & Lagarias, J.C. Annu. Rev. Plant Biol. 57, 837–858 (2006).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  7. Khanna, R. et al. Plant Cell 16, 3033–3044 (2004).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Levskaya, A., Weiner, O.D., Lim, W.A. & Voigt, C.A. Nature 461, 997–1001 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  9. Shimizu-Sato, S., Huq, E., Tepperman, J.M. & Quail, P.H. Nat. Biotechnol. 20, 1041–1044 (2002).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Tyszkiewicz, A.B. & Muir, T.W. Nat. Methods 5, 303–305 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  11. Leung, D.W., Otomo, C., Chory, J. & Rosen, M.K. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 105, 12797–12802 (2008).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  12. Edelstein, A., Amodaj, N., Hoover, K., Vale, R. & Stuurman, N. Curr. Protoc. Mol. Biol. 92, 14.20.01–14.20.17 (2010).

    Google Scholar 

  13. Suh, B.C., Inoue, T., Meyer, T. & Hille, B. Science 314, 1454–1457 (2006).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  14. Haugh, J.M., Codazzi, F., Teruel, M. & Meyer, T. J. Cell Biol. 151, 1269–1280 (2000).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  15. Gibson, D.G. et al. Nat. Methods 6, 343–345 (2009).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  16. Ory, D.S., Neugeboren, B.A. & Mulligan, R.C. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 93, 11400–11406 (1996).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  17. Toettcher, J.E., Gong, D., Lim, W.A. & Weiner, O.D. Methods Enzymol. 497, 409–423 (2011).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank all members of the Weiner and Lim laboratories, A. Levskaya, A. Edelstein and N. Stuurman for helpful comments and discussions, and A. Loewer and H. El-Samad for critically reading this manuscript. TagBFP construct was a gift from members of the Vale lab (University of California San Francisco), pHR lentiviral vectors were provided by J.R. James (University of California San Francisco), and the iSH construct was a gift from members of the Meyer lab (Stanford University). This work was supported by a Cancer Research Institute Postdoctoral Fellowship to J.E.T., an American Cancer Society postdoctoral fellowship to D.G., the Howard Hughes Medical Institute and US National Institutes of Health grants GM55040, GM62583, EY016546 and P50GM081879 to W.A.L., and a National Institutes of Health grant GM084040 and a Searle Scholars Fellowship to O.D.W.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cardiovascular Research Institute and Department of Biochemistry, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA

    Jared E Toettcher, Delquin Gong & Orion D Weiner

  2. Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA

    Jared E Toettcher & Wendell A Lim

  3. Howard Hughes Medical Institute, University of California San Francisco, San Francisco, California, USA

    Wendell A Lim

Authors
  1. Jared E Toettcher
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Delquin Gong
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Wendell A Lim
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Orion D Weiner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

J.E.T. conceived and implemented the feedback controller. O.D.W. and W.A.L. supervised the project. All authors designed experiments, which J.E.T. and D.G. performed. J.E.T. analyzed data. J.E.T., W.A.L. and O.D.W. wrote the paper, which all authors edited.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Wendell A Lim or Orion D Weiner.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Text and Figures

Supplementary Figures 1–9, Supplementary Note 1 (PDF 1401 kb)

Supplementary Software 1

Matlab toolbox for microscope control (via Micro-Manager) and the feedback controller. (ZIP 28 kb)

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Toettcher, J., Gong, D., Lim, W. et al. Light-based feedback for controlling intracellular signaling dynamics. Nat Methods 8, 837–839 (2011). https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1700

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nmeth.1700

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing