Emerging Concepts in Ion Channel Biophysics

Emerging Concepts in Ion Channel Biophysics

Wednesday Speaker Abstracts

Optical Approaches in Studies of Excitability Francisco Bezanilla . University of Chicago, USA. No Abstract

Minimal Tags for Live-Cell Protein Labelling and Superresolution Microscopy Ivana Nikic-Spiegel . Werner Reichardt Centre for Integrative Neuroscience (CIN), Tuebingen, Germany. Genetic code expansion (GCE) is emerging as an important technology for in vitro and in vivo protein manipulation and labelling. In combination with click-chemistry it allows site- specific labelling of proteins with small organic dyes. This is achieved by co-translational incorporation of unnatural amino acids (UAAs) in target proteins by using tRNA/amino-acyl tRNA synthetase pairs orthogonal to the host translational machinery. In a subsequent step, unique functional groups of UAAs are labelled with functionalized dyes in ultrafast and biocompatible click-chemistry reactions. The fact that any dye can be directly attached to the target protein in a minimally invasive way is of particular importance for single molecule science and superresolution microscopy (SRM). We previously used this technology for dual-colour live- cell labelling and SRM of distinct populations of membrane proteins in mammalian cells. In our current work we use it to visualize axonal injury in neuroinflammatory diseases, such as multiple sclerosis, at a nanoscale level.

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