Team:EPF-Lausanne

LovTAP dimer bound to DNA

Recent discoveries of photoreceptors in many organisms got us excited about the possibility of using light-responsive genetic tools in synthetic biology. The goal of our project is to induce a change in gene expression, more specifically to turn a gene on or off, in a living organism, in response to a light stimulus.

We will use light-sensitive DNA binding proteins (or light-sensitive proteins that activate DNA binding proteins) to convert a light input into a chosen output, for example fluorescence, through a reporter gene such as RFP.

Demonstrating that the light-induced gene switch tool works in vivo would show that easier and faster tools can potentially be made available in several fields of biology. Such tools could induce phenotypic changes more localized, more precise (time resolution and reversibility) and drastically faster than currently used chemically based methods.

LOV stands for light, oxygen, and voltage, whereas TAP means tryptophan-activated protein.