期刊名称:Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN:0027-8424
电子版ISSN:1091-6490
出版年度:2012
卷号:109
期号:19
页码:7523-7528
DOI:10.1073/pnas.1204391109
语种:English
出版社:The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要:The development of optical methods to control cellular functions is important for various biological applications. In particular, heat shock promoter-mediated gene expression systems by laser light are attractive targets for controlling cellular functions. However, previous approaches have considerable technical limitations related to their use of UV, short-wavelength visible (vis), and infrared (IR) laser light, which have poor penetration into biological tissue. Biological tissue is relatively transparent to light inside the diagnostic window at wavelengths of 650-1,100 nm. Here we present a unique optical biotechnological method using carbon nanohorn (CNH) that transforms energy from diagnostic window laser light to heat to control the expression of various genes. We report that with this method, laser irradiation within the diagnostic window resulted in effective heat generation and thus caused heat shock promoter-mediated gene expression. This study provides an important step forward in the development of light-manipulated gene expression technologies.