An introduction to Infrared Laser Evoked Gene Operator (IR-LEGO) technique and its applications

Abstract

Microscope technology has been used for observation of morphology and phenomena in tissues and cells. Recently, the technology has also been used for manipulation of living cells using the light, such as optogenetics which utilizes photo-dependent channels called channel rhodopsin-2 (ChR2) and photo-induced pump called halo rhodopsin (HR). We originally established another light induced cell manipulation technique which enables spatiotemporal in vivo expression of a target gene in a single-cell level. This method employs heat shock response of the target organisms to induce the target gene expression, and to heat the cell, a microscope technology using infrared irradiation is used. In this report, we introduce the method and examples of application that have been obtained by collaboration researches.