Extremely Sensitive Genetically Encoded Temperature Indicator Enabling Measurement at the Organelle Level.

Intracellular temperature is a fundamental parameter in biochemical reactions. Genetically encoded fluorescent temperature indicators (GETIs) have been developed to visualize intracellular thermogenesis; however, the temperature sensitivity or localization capability in specific organelles should have been further improved to clearly capture when and where intracellular temperature changes at the subcellular level occur. Here, we developed a new GETI, gMELT, composed of donor and acceptor subunits, in which cyan and yellow fluorescent proteins, respectively, as a Förster resonance energy transfer (FRET) pair were fused with temperature-sensitive domains. The donor and acceptor subunits associated and dissociated in response to temperature changes, altering the FRET efficiency. Consequently, gMELT functioned as a fluorescence ratiometric indicator. Untagged gMELT was expressed in the cytoplasm, whereas versions fused with specific localization signals were targeted to the endoplasmic reticulum (ER) or mitochondria. All gMELT variations enabled more sensitive temperature measurements in cellular compartments than those in previous GETIs. The gMELTs, tagged with ER or mitochondrial targeting sequences, were used to detect thermogenesis in organelles stimulated chemically, a method previously known to induce thermogenesis. The observed temperature changes were comparable to previous reports, assuming that the fluorescence readout changes were exclusively due to temperature variations. Furthermore, we demonstrated how macromolecular crowding influences gMELT fluorescence given that this factor can subtly affect the fluorescence readout. Investigating thermogenesis with gMELT, accounting for factors such as macromolecular crowding, will enhance our understanding of intracellular thermogenesis phenomena.

Selective-plane-activation structured illumination microscopy.

The background light from out-of-focus planes hinders resolution enhancement in structured illumination microscopy when observing volumetric samples. Here we used selective plane illumination and reversibly photoswitchable fluorescent proteins to realize structured illumination within the focal plane and eliminate the out-of-focus background. Theoretical investigation of the imaging properties and experimental demonstrations show that selective plane activation is beneficial for imaging dense microstructures in cells and cell spheroids.

Extension of the short wavelength side of fluorescent proteins using hydrated chromophores, and its application.

To perform correlation analysis between different physiological parameters using fluorescent protein-based functional probes, diversification of wavelength properties of fluorescent proteins is underway. However, the shortest emission wavelength of fluorescent proteins has not been updated for more than 10 years. Here, we report the development of Sumire, a fluorescent protein emitting 414 nm violet fluorescence from a hydrated chromophore. The Sumire's fluorescence property allows for the creation of FRET probes that can be used simultaneously with CFP-YFP based FRET probes for multi-parameter analysis.

Monitoring cellular redox dynamics using newly developed BRET-based redox sensor proteins.

Reactive oxygen species are key factors that strongly affect the cellular redox state and regulate various physiological and cellular phenomena. To monitor changes in the redox state, we previously developed fluorescent redox sensors named Re-Q, the emissions of which are quenched under reduced conditions. However, such fluorescent probes are unsuitable for use in the cells of photosynthetic organisms because they require photoexcitation that may change intracellular conditions and induce autofluorescence, primarily in chlorophylls. In addition, the presence of various chromophore pigments may interfere with fluorescence-based measurements because of their strong absorbance. To overcome these problems, we adopted the bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET) mechanism for the sensor and developed two BRET-based redox sensors by fusing cyan fluorescent protein-based or yellow fluorescent protein-based Re-Q with the luminescent protein Nluc. We named the resulting redox-sensitive BRET-based indicator probes "ROBINc" and "ROBINy." ROBINc is pH insensitive, which is especially vital for observation in photosynthetic organisms. By using these sensors, we successfully observed dynamic redox changes caused by an anticancer agent in HeLa cells and light/dark-dependent redox changes in the cells of photosynthetic cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. Since the newly developed sensors do not require excitation light, they should be especially useful for visualizing intracellular phenomena caused by redox changes in cells containing colored pigments.

Enhanced brightness of bacterial luciferase by bioluminescence resonance energy transfer.

Using the lux operon (luxCDABE) of bacterial bioluminescence system as an autonomous luminous reporter has been demonstrated in bacteria, plant and mammalian cells. However, applications of bacterial bioluminescence-based imaging have been limited because of its low brightness. Here, we engineered the bacterial luciferase (heterodimer of luxA and luxB) by fusion with Venus, a bright variant of yellow fluorescent protein, to induce bioluminescence resonance energy transfer (BRET). By using decanal as an externally added substrate, color change and ten-times enhancement of brightness was achieved in Escherichia coli when circularly permuted Venus was fused to the C-terminus of luxB. Expression of the Venus-fused luciferase in human embryonic kidney cell lines (HEK293T) or in Nicotiana benthamiana leaves together with the substrate biosynthesis-related genes (luxC, luxD and luxE) enhanced the autonomous bioluminescence. We believe the improved luciferase will forge the way towards the potential development of autobioluminescent reporter system allowing spatiotemporal imaging in live cells.

A photoswitchable fluorescent protein for hours-time-lapse and sub-second-resolved super-resolution imaging.

Reversibly photoswitchable fluorescent proteins (RSFPs) are a class of fluorescent proteins whose fluorescence can be turned on and off by light irradiation. RSFPs have become essential tools for super-resolution (SR) imaging. Because most SR imaging techniques require high-power-density illumination, mitigating phototoxicity in cells due to intense light irradiation has been a challenge. Although we previously developed an RSFP named Kohinoor to achieve SR imaging with low phototoxicity, the photoproperties were insufficient to move a step further to explore the cellular dynamics by SR imaging. Here, we show an improved version of RSFP, Kohinoor2.0, which is suitable for SR imaging of cellular processes. Kohinoor2.0 shows a 2.6-fold higher fluorescence intensity, 2.5-fold faster chromophore maturation and 1.5-fold faster off-switching than Kohinoor. The analysis of the pH dependence of the visible absorption band revealed that Kohinoor2.0 and Kohinoor were in equilibria among multiple fluorescently bright and dark states, with the mutations introduced into Kohinoor2.0 bringing about a higher stabilization of the fluorescently bright states compared to Kohinoor. Using Kohinoor2.0 with our SR imaging technique, super-resolution polarization demodulation/on-state polarization angle narrowing, we conducted 4-h time-lapse SR imaging of an actin filament network in mammalian cells with a total acquisition time of 480 s without a noticeable indication of phototoxicity. Furthermore, we demonstrated the SR imaging of mitochondria dynamics at a time resolution of 0.5 s, in which the fusion and fission processes were clearly visualized. Thus, Kohinoor2.0 is shown to be an invaluable RSFP for the SR imaging of cellular dynamics.

A luminescent Nanoluc-GFP fusion protein enables readout of cellular pH in photosynthetic organisms.

pH is one of the most critical physiological parameters determining vital cellular activities, such as photosynthetic performance. Fluorescent sensor proteins capable of measuring in situ pH in animal cells have been reported. However, these proteins require an excitation laser for pH measurement that may affect photosynthetic performance and induce autofluorescence from chlorophyll. As a result, it is not possible to measure the intracellular or intraorganelle pH changes in plants. To overcome this problem, we developed a luminescent pH sensor by fusing the luminescent protein Nanoluc to a uniquely designed pH-sensitive GFP variant protein. In this system, an excitation laser is unnecessary because the fused GFP variant reports on the luminescent signal by bioluminescence resonance energy transfer from Nanoluc. The ratio of two luminescent peaks from the sensor protein was approximately linear with respect to pH in the range of 7.0 to 8.5. We designated this sensor protein as "luminescent pH indicator protein" (Luphin). We applied Luphin to the in situ pH measurement of a photosynthetic organism under fluctuating light conditions, allowing us to successfully observe the cytosolic pH changes associated with photosynthetic electron transfer in the cyanobacterium Synechocystis sp. PCC 6803. Detailed analyses of the mechanisms of the observed estimated pH changes in the cytosol in this alga suggested that the photosynthetic electron transfer is suppressed by the reduced plastoquinone pool under light conditions. These results indicate that Luphin may serve as a helpful tool to further illuminate pH-dependent processes throughout the photosynthetic organisms.

Real-time monitoring of the in vivo redox state transition using the ratiometric redox state sensor protein FROG/B.

The intracellular redox state is one of the key factors regulating various physiological phenomena in the cell. Monitoring this state is therefore important for understanding physiological homeostasis in cells. Various fluorescent sensor proteins have already been developed to monitor intracellular redox state. We also developed fluorescent redox sensor proteins named Oba-Q and Re-Q, the emissions of which are quenched under oxidized and reduced conditions, respectively. Although these sensors were useful to visualize the redox changes in the cell over time, they have the weakness that their emission signals are directly influenced by their in situ expression levels. To overcome this problem, we developed a redox sensor protein with a single excitation peak and dual variable emission peaks. This sensor protein shows green emission under oxidized conditions and blue emission under reduced conditions. We therefore named this sensor FROG/B, fluorescent protein with redox-dependent change in green/blue. By using this sensor, we successfully measured the changes in intracellular redox potentials in cyanobacterial cells quantitatively caused by light/dark transition just by calculating the ratio of emission between green and blue signals.

Thioredoxin targets are regulated in heterocysts of cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. PCC 7120 in a light-independent manner.

In the nitrogen-fixing cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. PCC 7120, glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PDH) plays an important role in producing the power for reducing nitrogenase under light conditions. Our previous study showed that thioredoxin suppresses G6PDH by reducing its activator protein OpcA, implying that G6PDH is inactivated under light conditions because thioredoxins are reduced by the photosynthetic electron transport system in cyanobacteria. To address how Anabaena sp. PCC 7120 maintains G6PDH activity even under light conditions when nitrogen fixation occurs, we investigated the redox regulation system in vegetative cells and specific nitrogen-fixing cells named heterocysts, individually. We found that thioredoxin target proteins were more oxidized in heterocysts than in vegetative cells under light conditions. Alterations in the redox regulation mechanism of heterocysts may affect the redox states of thioredoxin target proteins, including OpcA, so that G6PDH is activated in heterocysts even under light conditions.

Impact of key residues within chloroplast thioredoxin-f on recognition for reduction and oxidation of target proteins.

Thioredoxin (Trx) is a redox-responsive protein that modulates the activities of its target proteins mostly by reducing their disulfide bonds. In chloroplasts, five Trx isoforms (Trx-f, Trx-m, Trx-x, Trx-y, and Trx-z) regulate various photosynthesis-related enzymes with distinct target selectivity. To elucidate the determinants of the target selectivity of each Trx isoform, here we investigated the residues responsible for target recognition by Trx-f, the most well-studied chloroplast-resident Trx. As reported previously, we found that positively-charged residues on the Trx-f surface are involved in the interactions with its targets. Moreover, several residues that are specifically conserved in Trx-f (e.g. Cys-126 and Thr-158) were also involved in interactions with target proteins. The validity of these residues was examined by the molecular dynamics simulation. In addition, we validated the impact of these key residues on target protein reduction by studying (i) Trx-m variants into which we introduced the key residues for Trx-f and (ii) Trx-like proteins, named atypical Cys His-rich Trx 1 (ACHT1) and ACHT2a, that also contain these key residues. These artificial or natural protein variants could reduce Trx-f-specific targets, indicating that the key residues for Trx-f are critical for Trx-f-specific target recognition. Furthermore, we demonstrate that ACHT1 and ACHT2a efficiently oxidize some Trx-f-specific targets, suggesting that its target selectivity also contributes to the oxidative regulation process. Our results reveal the key residues for Trx-f-specific target recognition and uncover ACHT1 and ACHT2a as oxidation factors of their target proteins, providing critical insight into redox regulation of photosynthesis.

The thioredoxin (Trx) redox state sensor protein can visualize Trx activities in the light/dark response in chloroplasts.

Thiol-based redox regulation via ferredoxin-thioredoxin (Trx) reductase/Trx controls various functions in chloroplasts in response to light/dark changes. Trx is a key factor of this regulatory system, and five Trx subtypes, including 10 isoforms, have been identified as chloroplast-localized forms in Arabidopsis thaliana These subtypes display distinct target selectivity, and, consequently, they form a complicated redox regulation network in chloroplasts. In this study, we developed a FRET-based sensor protein by combining CFP, YFP, and the N-terminal region of CP12, a redox-sensitive regulatory and Trx-targeted protein in chloroplasts. This sensor protein enabled us to monitor the redox change of chloroplast thioredoxin in vivo, and we therefore designated this protein "change in redox state of Trx" (CROST). Using CP12 isoforms, we successfully prepared two types of CROST sensors that displayed different affinities for two major chloroplast Trx isoforms (f-type and m-type). These sensor proteins helped unravel the real-time redox dynamics of Trx molecules in chloroplasts during the light/dark transition.

Multicolor redox sensor proteins can visualize redox changes in various compartments of the living cell.

Change in the intracellular redox state is a consequence of various metabolic reactions, which simultaneously regulates various physiological phenomena in cells. Monitoring the redox state in living cells is thus very important for understanding cellular physiology. Various genetically encoded fluorescent redox sensors have therefore been developed. Recently, we developed oxidation-sensitive fluorescent proteins named Oba-Q (Sugiura, K., et al. (2015) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 457, 242-248), which exhibit dramatic quenching under oxidizing conditions. To extend the range of uses of redox sensor proteins, we refined these proteins based on the molecular architecture applied to Oba-Q, and successfully produced several redox sensor proteins based on CFP and YFP. Interestingly, some of these sensor proteins showed the reverse changes in emission compared with Oba-Q, implying remarkable fluorescence quenching under reducing conditions. We named this type of sensor protein Re-Q, reduction-sensed quenching protein. The cause of the redox-dependent fluorescence quenching could be clearly explained based on the crystal structure of Re-Q in the reduced and oxidized forms. In addition, by introducing suitable mutations into the sensors, we produced Oba-Q and Re-Q mutants exhibiting various midpoint redox potentials. This series of proteins can cover a wide range of redox potentials in the cell, so they should be applicable to various cells and even intracellular organelles. As an example, we successfully measured the redox responses in different cell compartments of cultured mammalian cells simultaneously against the anticancer reagents Kp372-1.

Assessment of the flagellar redox potential in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii using a redox-sensitive fluorescent protein, Oba-Qc.

Cellular reducing-oxidizing (redox) potential is mainly determined by the concentration ratio between reduced and oxidized glutathiones. It is normally kept at a moderately reduced state but affected to some extent by metabolic activities such as respiration and/or photosynthesis. Changes in redox potential induce many cellular activities collectively called redox responses. For an understanding of the dynamics of the cellular redox responses, redox potential must be accurately assessed in vivo. In this study, we developed a method to measure the in vivo redox potential in the green alga Chlamydomonas reinhardtii, using Oba-Qc, a recently developed redox-monitoring protein. Taking advantage of the periodic flagellar assembly, we introduced Oba-Qc molecules into the flagella at a constant density. Fluorescence signals from flagella in live cells, calibrated against the fluorescence from the samples in buffers of known redox potentials, determined the redox potential to be ∼-250 mV in the light and ∼-280 mV in the dark. Introduction of a sensor protein fused with a structural protein that assembles at a constant density will be also applicable for measurements of various kinds cellular signals in flagella.

Thioredoxin-like2/2-Cys peroxiredoxin redox cascade supports oxidative thiol modulation in chloroplasts.

Thiol-based redox regulation is central to adjusting chloroplast functions under varying light conditions. A redox cascade via the ferredoxin-thioredoxin reductase (FTR)/thioredoxin (Trx) pathway has been well recognized to mediate the light-responsive reductive control of target proteins; however, the molecular basis for reoxidizing its targets in the dark remains unidentified. Here, we report a mechanism of oxidative thiol modulation in chloroplasts. We biochemically characterized a chloroplast stroma-localized atypical Trx from Arabidopsis, designated as Trx-like2 (TrxL2). TrxL2 had redox-active properties with an unusually less negative redox potential. By an affinity chromatography-based method, TrxL2 was shown to interact with a range of chloroplast redox-regulated proteins. The direct discrimination of thiol status indicated that TrxL2 can efficiently oxidize, but not reduce, these proteins. A notable exception was found in 2-Cys peroxiredoxin (2CP); TrxL2 was able to reduce 2CP with high efficiency. We achieved a complete in vitro reconstitution of the TrxL2/2CP redox cascade for oxidizing redox-regulated proteins and draining reducing power to hydrogen peroxide (H2O2). We further addressed the physiological relevance of this system by analyzing protein-oxidation dynamics. In Arabidopsis plants, a decreased level of 2CP led to the impairment of the reoxidation of redox-regulated proteins during light-dark transitions. A delayed response of protein reoxidation was concomitant with the prolonged accumulation of reducing power in TrxL2. These results suggest an in vivo function of the TrxL2/2CP redox cascade for driving oxidative thiol modulation in chloroplasts.

Thioredoxin regulates G6PDH activity by changing redox states of OpcA in the nitrogen-fixing cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. PCC 7120.

Glucose 6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PDH) catalyzes the first reaction in the oxidative pentose phosphate pathway. In green plant chloroplasts, G6PDH is a unique redox-regulated enzyme, since it is inactivated under the reducing conditions. This regulation is accomplished using a redox-active cysteine pair, which is conserved in plant G6PDH. The inactivation of this enzyme under conditions of light must be beneficial to prevent release of CO2 from the photosynthetic carbon fixation cycle. In the filamentous, heterocyst-forming, nitrogen-fixing cyanobacterium Anabaena sp. PCC 7120 (Anabaena 7120), G6PDH plays a pivotal role in providing reducing power for nitrogenase, and its activity is also reported to be suppressed by reduction, though Anabaena G6PDH does not conserve the critical cysteines for regulation. Based on the thorough analyses of the redox regulation mechanisms of G6PDH from Anabaena 7120 and its activator protein OpcA, we found that m-type thioredoxin regulates G6PDH activity by changing the redox states of OpcA. Mass spectrometric analysis and mutagenesis studies indicate that Cys393 and Cys399 of OpcA are responsible for the redox regulation property of this protein. Moreover, in vivo analyses of the redox states of OpcA showed that more than half of the OpcA is present as an oxidized form, even under conditions of light, when cells are cultured under the nitrogen-fixing conditions. This redox regulation of OpcA might be necessary to provide reducing power for nitrogenase by G6PDH in heterocysts even during the day.

Redox sensor proteins for highly sensitive direct imaging of intracellular redox state.

Intracellular redox state is a critical factor for fundamental cellular functions, including regulation of the activities of various metabolic enzymes as well as ROS production and elimination. Genetically-encoded fluorescent redox sensors, such as roGFP (Hanson, G. T., et al. (2004)) and Redoxfluor (Yano, T., et al. (2010)), have been developed to investigate the redox state of living cells. However, these sensors are not useful in cells that contain, for example, other colored pigments. We therefore intended to obtain simpler redox sensor proteins, and have developed oxidation-sensitive fluorescent proteins called Oba-Q (oxidation balance sensed quenching) proteins. Our sensor proteins derived from CFP and Sirius can be used to monitor the intracellular redox state as their fluorescence is drastically quenched upon oxidation. These blue-shifted spectra of the Oba-Q proteins enable us to monitor various redox states in conjunction with other sensor proteins.