1National Laboratory of Biomacromolecules, Institute of Biophysics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100101, China
2The Howard Hughes Medical Institute and the Department of Cellular and Molecular Pharmacology, University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA 94158, USA

Abstract 

Chromophore-assisted laser inactivation (CALI) is a technique that uses photochemically-generated reactive oxygen species to acutely inactivate target proteins in living cells. Neural development includes highly dynamic cellular processes such as asymmetric cell division, migration, axon and dendrite outgrowth and synaptogenesis. Although many key molecules of neural development have been identified since the past decades, their spatiotemporal contributions to these cellular events are not well understood. CALI provides an appealing tool for elucidating the precise functions of these molecules during neural development. In this review, we summarize the principles of CALI, a recent microscopic setup to perform CALI experiments, and the application of CALI to the study of growth-cone motility and neuroblast asymmetric division.

Keywords

chromophore-assisted laser inactivation; growth cone; neuroblast; asymmetric cell division

[SpringerLink]