TY - JOUR
T1 - Hybrid upconversion nanomaterials for optogenetic neuronal control
AU - Shah, Shreyas
AU - Liu, Jing Jing
AU - Pasquale, Nicholas
AU - Lai, Jinping
AU - McGowan, Heather
AU - Pang, Zhiping P.
AU - Lee, Ki Bum
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2015 The Royal Society of Chemistry.
PY - 2015/10/28
Y1 - 2015/10/28
N2 - Nanotechnology-based approaches offer the chemical control required to develop precision tools suitable for applications in neuroscience. We report a novel approach employing hybrid upconversion nanomaterials, combined with the photoresponsive ion channel channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2), to achieve near-infrared light (NIR)-mediated optogenetic control of neuronal activity. Current optogenetic methodologies rely on using visible light (e.g. 470 nm blue light), which tends to exhibit high scattering and low tissue penetration, to activate ChR2. In contrast, our approach enables the use of 980 nm NIR light, which addresses the short-comings of visible light as an excitation source. This was facilitated by embedding upconversion nanomaterials, which can convert NIR light to blue luminescence, into polymeric scaffolds. These hybrid nanomaterial scaffolds allowed for NIR-mediated neuronal stimulation, with comparable efficiency as that of 470 nm blue light. Our platform was optimized for NIR-mediated optogenetic control by balancing multiple physicochemical properties of the nanomaterial (e.g. size, morphology, structure, emission spectra, concentration), thus providing an early demonstration of rationally-designing nanomaterial-based strategies for advanced neural applications.
AB - Nanotechnology-based approaches offer the chemical control required to develop precision tools suitable for applications in neuroscience. We report a novel approach employing hybrid upconversion nanomaterials, combined with the photoresponsive ion channel channelrhodopsin-2 (ChR2), to achieve near-infrared light (NIR)-mediated optogenetic control of neuronal activity. Current optogenetic methodologies rely on using visible light (e.g. 470 nm blue light), which tends to exhibit high scattering and low tissue penetration, to activate ChR2. In contrast, our approach enables the use of 980 nm NIR light, which addresses the short-comings of visible light as an excitation source. This was facilitated by embedding upconversion nanomaterials, which can convert NIR light to blue luminescence, into polymeric scaffolds. These hybrid nanomaterial scaffolds allowed for NIR-mediated neuronal stimulation, with comparable efficiency as that of 470 nm blue light. Our platform was optimized for NIR-mediated optogenetic control by balancing multiple physicochemical properties of the nanomaterial (e.g. size, morphology, structure, emission spectra, concentration), thus providing an early demonstration of rationally-designing nanomaterial-based strategies for advanced neural applications.
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U2 - 10.1039/c5nr03411f
DO - 10.1039/c5nr03411f
M3 - Article
C2 - 26415758
AN - SCOPUS:84944145059
SN - 2040-3364
VL - 7
SP - 16571
EP - 16577
JO - Nanoscale
JF - Nanoscale
IS - 40
ER -