title: Enhancing Channelrhodopsins: An Overview.
abstract: After the discovery of Channelrhodopsin, a light-gated ion channel, only a few people saw the diverse range of applications for such a protein. Now, more than 10 years later Channelrhodopsins have become widely accepted as the ultimate tool to control the membrane potential of excitable cells via illumination. The demand for more application-specific Channelrhodopsin variants started a race between protein engineers to design improved variants. Even though many engineered variants have undisputable advantages compared to wild-type variants, many users are alienated by the tremendous amount of new variants and their perplexing names. Here, we review new variants whose efficacy has already been proven in neurophysiological experiments, or variants which are likely to extend the optogenetic toolbox. Variants are described based on their mechanistic and operational properties in terms of expression, kinetics, ion selectivity, and wavelength responsivity.
authors.affiliation: Experimental Biophysics, Humboldt University Berlin, Invalidenstrasse 42, 10115, Berlin, Germany.
authors.forename: Jonas
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Wietek
authors.affiliation: Department of Neurobiology, Weizmann Institute of Science, Herzel 234, 76100, Rehovot, Israel. matthias.prigge@weizmann.ac.il.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Prigge
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000460:Chlorophyta / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D015870:Gene Expression; D006801:Humans; D008027:Light; D008958:Models, Molecular; D062308:Optogenetics / Q000379:methods; D010940:Plant Proteins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism; D015202:Protein Engineering / Q000379:methods*; D012243:Rhodopsin / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D010940:Plant Proteins; D012243:Rhodopsin
keywords: Channelrhodopsins; Microbial rhodopsin; Optogenetics; Protein engineering; User guide