Toolkit Items

TAEL is an engineered optogenetic transcription factor optimized for zebrafish in which blue light induces TAEL dimerization, binding to the C120 promoter element, and activation of downstream transcription. TAEL 2.0 is an improved transgenic implementation that enables inducible expression at late embryonic and larval stages and produces faster, higher reporter expression than the original system.

TAEL 2.0 is a modified version of the TAEL/C120 optogenetic transcription system in which both the TAEL transcriptional activator and the C120 regulatory element were altered. In zebrafish embryos, blue light induces TAEL dimerization, binding to the C120 element, and transcriptional activation to drive light-inducible gene expression.

The light-inducible split Cre recombinase is an optogenetic multi-component switch in which split Cre recombinase fragments are coupled to light-inducible dimerization modules to achieve inducible post-translational control of Cre activity. It was characterized by comprehensive screening of split sites across the Cre protein using a pooled, sequencing-based domain insertion profiling approach.

The LightOn system is an optogenetic gene-expression switch in which blue light induces activity of the GAVPO regulator to control expression of a gene of interest. In the cited 2023 work, all LightOn components were assembled into the OPTO-BLUE lentiviral platform for light-controlled reporter expression.

The optimized Enhanced Magnet transcription factor is a light-responsive split transcription factor developed in Saccharomyces cerevisiae using Enhanced Magnet dimerization modules. It was rationally designed and tested to improve light-sensitive gene expression.