{"id":410110,"date":"2025-09-09T09:43:10","date_gmt":"2025-09-09T09:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/410110\/"},"modified":"2025-09-09T09:43:10","modified_gmt":"2025-09-09T09:43:10","slug":"light-switches-give-scientists-control-over-cells","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/410110\/","title":{"rendered":"Light Switches Give Scientists Control Over Cells"},"content":{"rendered":"

Imagine being able to flip a light switch to control disease pathways inside a living cell. A team of visionary researchers at the Texas A&M University Health Science Center (Texas A&M Health<\/a>) is making this dream a reality with their groundbreaking genetic tools known as photo-inducible binary interaction tools, or PhoBITs.<\/p>\n

Published in\u00a0Nature Communications,\u00a0the study<\/a>\u00a0describes how PhoBITs enable researchers to harness the precision of a conductor leading an orchestra\u2014using pulses of blue light to command specific proteins to start or stop their activity inside living cells with unparalleled accuracy.<\/p>\n

The research demonstrates PhoBITs\u2019 versatility in controlling gene expression, receptor signaling, calcium ion channel activity, cell death and immune responses. In one of the most striking examples, the team engineered a therapeutic \u201cmonobody\u201d to selectively bind and inhibit a leukemia-driving fusion protein only when illuminated, leading to suppressed tumor growth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe compactness and flexibility of PhoBITs mean they can be tailored for everything from dissecting basic cellular mechanisms to developing clinical-grade, light-guided therapies,\u201d said Yubin Zhou, MD, PhD, FAIMBE, FRSC, senior author of the study and professor at the\u00a0Texas A&M Health Institute of Biosciences and Technology<\/a>\u00a0in Houston.<\/p>\n

Because PhoBITs can be activated in targeted tissues or microenvironments\u2014exact neighborhoods of tumor cells\u2014they have the potential to minimize the systemic side effects that limit many conventional treatments. For example, chemotherapy can harm healthy cells in the gut, hair follicles or bone marrow, leading to nausea, hair loss and fatigue. By confining the treatment only to the area it\u2019s needed, PhoBITs open new avenues in cancer therapy,\u00a0immunotherapy<\/a>\u00a0fine-tuning and regenerative medicine.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur vision is to integrate these light-controlled switches into next-generation cell and gene therapies, thereby enabling an unprecedented level of control over when and where treatments take effect,\u201d Zhou said.<\/p>\n

What are PhoBITs?<\/p>\n

At the core of PhoBITs is a surprisingly small system: a seven-amino acid tag called ssrA and its binding partner, sspB. Originally borrowed from bacterial protein machinery, this duo can be engineered to interact or separate depending on exposure to light.<\/p>\n

By incorporating light-sensitive domains into sspB, Zhou\u2019s team created two complementary switches:<\/p>\n