GFP avoidance transgenic

Model Organism: Worms Scientific Discussion
1

SUPER Vague question here…

I vaguely remember a worm meeting talk where someone developed a transgenic line carrying a photoactive channel that induced either a mechano or osmotic avoidance response to GFP. The take home was that in the presence of GFP (UV), worms would turn on avoidance pathways. Ya, that’s all I remember. Has anyone seen this sort of thing? I wanted to reference it in a leture on perception.

Thanks so much!

2

Maybe you mean channelrhodopsin or halorhodopsin? Either could possibly be used as you describe to program responses to light, though GFP isn’t involved.
One of the neater things I’ve seen in terms of programming C. elegans responses to light was a pair of papers in Nature Methods that managed to illuminate specific regions of freely moving animals: 1, 2.

3

Thanks so much…the channelrhodopsin was the one I was thinking of. They create an avoidance response to blue light. Cheers!