Thermal trigger: Scientists develop heat-activated protein control for targeted cell death

Researchers at the Nano Life Science Institute (WPI-NanoLSI), Kanazawa University, report in ACS Nano, how proteins in cells can be controllably activated through heating, an effect that can be used to initiate programmed cell death.

Being able to control the functioning of proteins is highly relevant for the development of biotechnological tools. Doing so with high-enough spatial and temporal precision is hugely challenging, however. One approach for tackling this challenge, called thermogenetics, is based on the thermal response of certain proteins, with slight heating or cooling resulting in (de)activation.

Now, Cong Quang Vu and Satoshi Arai from Kanazawa University have developed a thermogenetic tool based on polypeptides that enables easy regulation of a protein's activation temperature and used it to achieve programmed cell death of human-derived cells.

The scientists worked with so-called elastin-like polypeptides (ELPs), biopolymers composed of repeated amino acid building blocks. ELPs are soluble below a certain temperature; above the temperature threshold, they group into coacervate droplets.

Image source: S. Arai, Kanazawa University.