PLoS ONE (Jun 2008)

Engineering of a genetically encodable fluorescent voltage sensor exploiting fast Ci-VSP voltage-sensing movements.

  • Alicia Lundby,
  • Hiroki Mutoh,
  • Dimitar Dimitrov,
  • Walther Akemann,
  • Thomas Knöpfel

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0002514
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 3, no. 6
p. e2514

Abstract

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Ci-VSP contains a voltage-sensing domain (VSD) homologous to that of voltage-gated potassium channels. Using charge displacement ('gating' current) measurements we show that voltage-sensing movements of this VSD can occur within 1 ms in mammalian membranes. Our analysis lead to development of a genetically encodable fluorescent protein voltage sensor (VSFP) in which the fast, voltage-dependent conformational changes of the Ci-VSP voltage sensor are transduced to similarly fast fluorescence read-outs.