Researchers at Jamia Millia Islamia’s Multidisciplinary Centre for Advanced Research and Studies (MCARS) have developed an optogenetic tool that has the potential to be used to understand neurological disorders like Alzheimer’s disease, depression and schizophrenia. The research has been done in collaboration with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), USA. The tool was developed by the lead author of the study, Dr Tanveer Ahmad, who did his postdoctoral training at NIH, before joining MCARS as an assistant professor. “Leveraging the potential of phototropic receptors known as light-oxygen-voltage sensing domains derived from the plant avena sativa (used to derive the common cereal oats, and abbreviated as AsLOV2) the researchers generated innovative chimeric molecular designs by conjugating a light-sensitive domain of LOV2 with a protein called neuregulin3 (NRG3),” Jamia said in a statement. Genetic screening and molecular methods previously developed by other research groups and by two of the authors in the study have shown NRG3 as an important protein implicated in psychiatric diseases, the statement added. “…diseases like Alzheimer’s, schizophrenia and depression have genetic polymorphisms in NRG3 due to which it is considered as a susceptible gene for these diseases. Using this innovative tool, the researchers discovered a new mechanism of protein trafficking in hippocampal neurons of the brain which they termed as ‘trans-synaptic retention’,” the university said. Ahmad said understanding the molecular details of these diseases will “help to develop targeted therapies, in particular viral- and mRNA-based methods, which are specific to a particular target molecule in the cells”. “This optogenetic tool can be applied to address other biological questions like memory formation, and for the development of inducible light-activated therapies for the treatment of cancer and neurodegeneration,” he said. Professor Mohd Zulfequar, director MCARS, said that the “futuristic optogenetic techniques” will provide “unprecedented ease to understand human diseases and to find innovative treatment solutions”. “The optogenetic technique has revolutionized the field of neuroscience and our collaboration with premier institutes of the world like NIH, USA shows that India is in the forefront to develop and implement these cutting-edge technologies,” said Zulfequar. The study was published in a peer-reviewed scientific journal ‘Journal of Cell Biology’ by The Rockefeller University, USA. Besides Ahmad, Rituparna Chaudhuri and Nisha Chaudhary are the other contributing authors in this study from India. The team from NIH includes Andres Buonanno, who is the senior author, and Detlef Vullhorst, Carlos Guardia, Irina Karavanova, and Juan Bonifacino as other co-authors.
