The Sosnick lab has been a leader in the development of light-sensitive protein engineering using LOV domains with effector proteins. This strategy can be used to control DNA binding, myosin VI, and co-localization with sub-cellular precision using light (Strickland et al., 2008, 2012; French et al., 2017). Integral to successful implementation is our characterization of the light-induced changes in the LOV2 protein (Zayner et al., 2012, 2013, 2014) that are coupled to the effector domain that can be tuned to provide the best light:dark response (Strickland et al., 2010).
Light-dependent recruitment of Myosin VI to peroxisomes
Show are sequential movies showing light-dependent recruitment of myosin VI to peroxisomes with subsequent release of myosin VI in the dark. Time resets to 0 s at the start of each video. (Scale bar, 5 μm). Video taken from Movie S2 of French et al., 2017.
J.P. Zayner, T. Mathes, T.R. Sosnick, J.T.M. Kennis, "Helical Contributions Mediate Light-Activated Conformational Change in the LOV2 Domain of Avena sativa Phototropin 1" ACS Omega 2019, 4(1) 1238-43.
A.R. French, T.R. Sosnick, R.S. Rock, "Investigations of human myosin VI targeting using optogenetically controlled cargo loading" Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 114 (2017) E1607-16.
J.P. Zayner, T.R. Sosnick, "Factors that control the chemistry of the LOV domain photocycle" PLoS One 9 (2014) e87074.
J.P. Zayner, C. Antoniou, A.R. French, R.J. Hause, Jr., T.R. Sosnick, "Investigating models of protein function and allostery with a widespread mutational analysis of a light-activated protein" Biophys J 105 (2013) 1027-36.
D. Strickland, Y. Lin, E. Wagner, C.M. Hope, J. Zayner, C. Antoniou, T.R. Sosnick, E.L. Weiss, M. Glotzer, "TULIPs: tunable, light-controlled interacting protein tags for cell biology" Nat Methods 9 (2012) 379-84.
J.P. Zayner, C. Antoniou, T.R. Sosnick, "The amino-terminal helix modulates light-activated conformational changes in AsLOV2" J Mol Biol 419 (2012) 61-74.
D. Strickland, X. Yao, G. Gawlak, M.K. Rosen, K.H. Gardner, T.R. Sosnick, "Rationally improving LOV domain-based photoswitches" Nat Methods 7 (2010) 623-6.
D. Strickland, K. Moffat, T.R. Sosnick, "Light-activated DNA binding in a designed allosteric protein" Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 105 (2008) 10709-14.