KSEA events High Throughput Evolution of Near Infrared Serotonin Nanosensors (190807 KSEA Berkeley Chapter Seminar)
2019.08.08 01:51
TITLE: High Throughput Evolution of Near Infrared
Serotonin Nanosensors
SPEAKER: Sanghwa
Jeong, PostDoctoral Researcher, Department of Chemical and biomolecular
engineering, UC Berkeley
ABSTRACT: Release and reuptake of neuromodulator
serotonin, 5-HT, is central to mood regulation and neuropsychiatric disorders,
whereby imaging serotonin is of fundamental importance to study the brain’s
serotonin signaling system. We introduce a reversible near-infrared nanosensor
for serotonin (nIRHT), for which synthetic molecular recognition toward
serotonin is systematically evolved from ssDNA-carbon nanotube constructs
generated from large libraries of 6.9 × 1010 unique ssDNA sequences. nIRHT
produces a ~200% fluorescence enhancement upon exposure to serotonin with a Kd
= 6.3 µM affinity. nIRHT shows selective responsivity towards serotonin over
serotonin analogs, metabolites, and receptor-targeting drugs, and a 5-fold
increased affinity for serotonin over dopamine. Further, nIRHT can be
introduced into the brain extracellular space in acute slice, and can be used
to image exogenous serotonin reversibly. Our results suggest evolution of
nanosensors could be generically implemented to rapidly develop other neuromodulator
probes, and that these probes can image neuromodulator dynamics at
spatiotemporal scales compatible with endogenous neuromodulation.
BIO: Dr. Sanghwa Jeong is a PostDoc working with
Prof. Markitia Landry in Department of CBE, UC Berkeley. He received Ph.D.
and B.S. in Chemistry at POSTECH, Korea.
