Toolkit Items

Vivid-fused light-inducible recombinases are engineered Cre, Dre, and Flp variants generated by combining each site-specific recombinase with the fungal light-inducible protein Vivid. These constructs confer blue-light-driven recombinase activity and were used for light-induced genomic modification in live mouse brain, including under one-photon or two-photon illumination according to the provided summary.

BLADE, or Boolean Logic and Arithmetic through DNA Excision, is a platform that multiplexes light-inducible recombinases in mammalian cells. In the cited study, it was used as a DNA-excision-based control framework for Boolean logic and arithmetic operations and in a light-responsive recombinase context for cell patterning applications.

The engineered optogenetic on switch is a light-inducible multi-component system that converts a transient blue light input into permanent transgene expression. It has been applied to drive recombination-linked gene expression programs, including spatially patterned differentiation in culture and pro-angiogenic factor expression in vivo.

LOV2-based optogenetic actuators are light-responsive protein-domain tools whose switching can be sensitised and monitored in situ by resonance energy transfer. The available evidence supports their use as optogenetic actuators with resonance energy transfer integrated into the readout and sensitisation strategy.

FUN-LOVSP-Hph is a blue-light-responsive yeast optogenetic switch variant of FUN-LOVSP that includes a hygromycin resistance cassette for selection after genome integration. It drives light-induced reporter expression and was reported to outperform the original FUN-LOV system in BY4741 yeast while remaining functional in a wine yeast strain.

FUN-LOVSP-Nat is a blue-light-responsive yeast optogenetic switch variant derived from the FUN-LOVSP system and carrying a nourseothricin resistance marker. In BY4741 yeast, it supported blue-light-induced luciferase expression that exceeded the original FUN-LOV system in both episomal and genome-integrated formats.

Light-inducible SMOC-like repeats (LiSmore) is a light-sensitive optogenetic device engineered to control cGAS/STING signaling and conditionally modulate innate immunity. In the cited 2023 study, photo-activated LiSmore was used to regulate STING pathway output with spatiotemporal control and enhance antitumor immune responses.

OptoShroom3 is an optogenetic multi-component switch developed for fast spatiotemporal control of apical constriction in mammalian epithelia. Illumination reduces the apical surface area of targeted epithelial cells and can induce synthetic tissue deformations and morphogenesis.

ShineGAL4 is an optogenetic split-GAL4 system for Drosophila that enables light-induced control of transgene expression. It was implemented as a set of tissue- and cell-type-specific ShineGAL4 driver lines for rapid gene expression across multiple Drosophila tissues.

Here, we develop chemogenetically and optogenetically inducible engineered depalmitoylases to manipulate the palmitoylation status of target proteins.