Paralyzing light turns worms blue
Neil Branda, 778.782.8061, nbranda@sfu.ca (North Shore resident)
Carol Thorbes, PAMR, 778.782.3035, cthorbes@sfu.ca
Experimenting with light, molecules and worms, Simon Fraser University scientists have inched research closer to probing, altering and possibly improving how biological processes can be controlled.
Led by Neil Branda—an SFU chemist, Canada Research Chair and executive director of 4D LABS—the research team has fused biochemistry and photochemistry to paralyze and unparalyze tiny worms known as C. elegans.
Branda and doctoral student Usama Al-Altar created a photo-responsive dye that they fed to worms raised in SFU geneticist and Canada Research Chair David Baillie’s lab.
Under a fluorescence microscope, Branda and Al-Altar could see that the colourless transparent worms had taken up the dye. When the dye-fed worms were struck by ultraviolet light they turned blue and were paralysed.
When the scientists zapped the motionless worms with visible light most of them awoke, regained movement and became colourless again. Some, however, died as a result of the experiment.
“The worms turn blue because light triggers the photo-reaction of the dye, which looks blue,” explains Branda. “The worms are paralysed by this form of the dye, we think, because it interferes with some electron transport system that controls movement.”
The scientists say that the worms regain motion when they use visible light because their dye’s photo-responsive behaviour is reversible.
“This is a new molecular tool for studying cells and possibly, much further down the research road, a way of turning off and on biological processes without using invasive drugs and surgery,” explains Branda.
SFU’s Community Trust Endowment Fund (CTEF) is financing this five-year project, launched in 2006. The CTEF invests millions of dollars from the lease of land in UniverCity, a commercial-residential development surrounding SFU, to support multidisciplinary research such as this project.
4D LABS, a $40 million SFU research centre largely funded by the Canada Foundation for Innovation (CFI), is using remotely controlled designer molecules to create a new generation of medical and energy-saving technologies.
(electronic photo file available)