2015年3月23日訊 /生物谷BIOON/--隨著近年來科學家在表觀遺傳學領域研究的深入，人們開始希望通過體外刺激的方式來控制體內細胞尤其是神經元細胞的狀態。這一領域有著廣闊的應用前景，如治療黃斑病變等遺傳病。以此為基礎，光遺傳學等學科紛紛被建立起來。不過，目前為止，為了實現這一目標，研究人員不得不對神經元進行基因改造。這也極大阻礙了這一技術的普及。
最近來自芝加哥大學和伊利諾伊大學芝加哥分校的研究人員們在這一領域實現了突破。研究人員利用遠紅外光產生的熱量來控制正常神經元細胞正常的生命活動。不同於以往在正常神經元細胞中表達光敏蛋白的做法，來自芝加哥的科學家們選擇使用金納米顆粒來定位特定的神經元。為了解決金納米顆粒專一性的問題，研究人員將一種蠍神經毒素Ts1連接到金納米顆粒上。Ts1可以通過識別神經元細胞表面的鈉離子通道來靶向識別神經元細胞。這也是人類首次在不改造神經元遺傳特性的基礎上，實現光控神經元活動的目的。不過，這一研究仍處於早期階段，研究人員同時表示Ts1可能對神經元細胞存在毒性。這一研究工作被發表在Neuron雜誌上。（生物谷Bioon.com）
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Neuron doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2015.02.033
Photosensitivity of Neurons Enabled by Cell-Targeted Gold Nanoparticles
Unmodified neurons can be directly stimulated with light to produce action potentials, but such techniques have lacked localization of the delivered light energy. Here we show that gold nanoparticles can be conjugated to high-avidity ligands for a variety of cellular targets. Once bound to a neuron, these particles transduce millisecond pulses of light into heat, which changes membrane capacitance, depolarizing the cell and eliciting action potentials. Compared to non-functionalized nanoparticles, ligand-conjugated nanoparticles highly resist convective washout and enable photothermal stimulation with lower delivered energy and resulting temperature increase. Ligands targeting three different membrane proteins were tested; all showed similar activity and washout resistance. This suggests that many types of ligands can be bound to nanoparticles, preserving ligand and nanoparticle function, and that many different cell phenotypes can be targeted by appropriate choice of ligand. The findings have applications as an alternative to optogenetics and potentially for therapies involving neuronal photostimulation.