Skip to content. | Skip to navigation

Personal tools

Sections
You are here: Home / Teams / Posttranscriptional Regulation in Infection and Oncogenesis - Jalinot/Mocquet / Publications / Photoswitchable Inhibitors of Microtubule Dynamics Optically Control Mitosis and Cell Death.

Photoswitchable Inhibitors of Microtubule Dynamics Optically Control Mitosis and Cell Death.

Malgorzata Borowiak, Wallis Nahaboo, Martin Reynders, Katharina Nekolla, Pierre Jalinot, Jens Hasserodt, Markus Rehberg, Marie Delattre, Stefan Zahler, Angelika Vollmar, Dirk Trauner, and Oliver Thorn-Seshold (2015)

Cell, 162(2):403-11.

Small molecules that interfere with microtubule dynamics, such as Taxol and the Vinca alkaloids, are widely used in cell biology research and as clinical anticancer drugs. However, their activity cannot be restricted to specific target cells, which also causes severe side effects in chemotherapy. Here, we introducethe photostatins, inhibitors that can be switched on and off in vivo by visible light, to optically control microtubule dynamics. Photostatins modulate microtubule dynamics with a subsecond response time and control mitosis in living organisms with single-cell spatial precision. In longer-term applications in cell culture, photostatins are up to 250 times more cytotoxic when switched on with blue light than when kept in the dark. Therefore, photostatins are both valuabletools for cell biology, and are promising as a new class of precision chemotherapeutics whose toxicity may be spatiotemporally constrained using light.

 
automatic medline import

Document Actions