Epilepsy is a common and frequently occurring disease of the nervous system. Epilepsy is caused by the imbalance of excitation and inhibition between specific neuronal circuits. At the synaptic level, the death and dysfunction of inhibitory interneurons lead to a significant reduction in the inhibition of pyramidal neurons, which promotes the hyperexcitability of neurons and seizures. At present, the main treatment of epilepsy is antiepileptic drugs, but there are many adverse reactions and the accuracy of lesion localization. Finding new antiepileptic methods has become a hot spot in neuroscience research.

So far, many studies have used the high temporal and spatial specificity of optogenetic technology to affect the activities of inhibitory interneurons and/or excitatory pyramidal cells respectively, so as to inhibit the occurrence of epilepsy. Optogenetics, as a new neural regulation technology for specific neurons, has opened up a new research field for epilepsy research.

Creative BioMart provides various solutions for clients who desire to do epilepsy research. We have the ability to provide the construction services of cell lines, expression systems and model organisms.

Optogenetic Tools for Epilepsy Research

The main technical processes of using optogenetic technology to study epilepsy include

(1) Select the appropriate photosensitive protein. NpHR and ChR2 are often selected

The halorhodopsin like photosensitive protein NpHR can cause the transmembrane movement of ions under the irradiation of 590 nm yellow light, resulting in neuronal hyperpolarization. Rhodopsin photosensitive protein ChR2 can depolarize neurons under 470nm blue light.

(2) The photosensitive proteins were expressed in specific cells

(3) Transmitted light enters the lesion

(4) Record, observe and analyze the optical control results

Achievable Missions at Creative BioMart

Targeted transfection of photosensitive protein into specific neurons

In the targeted transfection of optogenetic technology, virus transport is the most commonly used way, because the virus is smaller than neurons (20 ~ 200 nm), it can be injected into any brain region at any time, and can make the photosensitive protein highly expressed. The most commonly used vectors for virus transport are adeno-associated virus (AAV) and lentivirus. The main disadvantage of virus expression system is that it can not carry a large amount of genetic material, but its advantage is the high expression level of photosensitive protein; Another method is to use transgenic (gene knock in) animals, but the expression level of photosensitive protein in transgenic animals is low. Other methods include projection targeting, spatiotemporal targeting and the combination of different targeting technologies.

Establishment of acute epilepsy model

When the brain inhibitory network is damaged, whether in vivo or in vitro, NpHR based photogenetic hyperpolarization can inhibit the hippocampal pyramidal neuron population, thus interrupting seizures. The NpHR coding gene carried by AVV was transferred into rat neurons to establish an epilepsy model.

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Reference

1. Bentley JN, Chestek C, Stacey WC, Patil PG. Optogenetics in epilepsy. Neurosurg Focus. 2013 Jun;34(6):E4.

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