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Intracellular Light‐Activation of Riboswitch Activity
Author(s) -
Walsh Steven,
Gardner Laura,
Deiters Alexander,
Williams Gavin J.
Publication year - 2014
Publication title -
chembiochem
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.05
H-Index - 126
eISSN - 1439-7633
pISSN - 1439-4227
DOI - 10.1002/cbic.201400024
Subject(s) - riboswitch , intracellular , chemistry , computational biology , biophysics , biology , biochemistry , rna , non coding rna , gene
By combining a riboswitch with a cell‐permeable photocaged small‐molecule ligand, an optochemical gene control element was constructed that enabled spatial and temporal control of gene expression in bacterial cells. The simplicity of this strategy, coupled with the ability to create synthetic riboswitches with tailored ligand specificities and output in a variety of microorganisms, plants, and fungi might afford a general strategy to photocontrol gene expression in vivo. The ability to activate riboswitches by using light enables the interrogation and manipulation of a wide range of biological processes with high precision, and will have broad utility in the regulation of artificial genetic circuits.