SKM 2023 – wissenschaftliches Programm

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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik

BP 21: Bioimaging

BP 21.4: Vortrag

Donnerstag, 30. März 2023, 10:15–10:30, BAR Schö

CRISPR activation screen to improve the optical properties of living tissues — •Susan Wagner, Venkat Krishnaswamy, Kaushikaram Subramanian, Heike Petzold, Benjamin Seelbinder, Rico Barsacchi, and Moritz Kreysing — Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany

Today, optical microscopes deliver unprecedented resolution allowing discoveries down to the molecular level. Nevertheless, optical access of living biological samples by microscopes is usually restricted to the outer most surface owing to tissue-induced light scattering.

Using directed evolution, we successfully improved the optical properties of mammalian cells. We aim to fully understand this optical plasticity of cells, and genetically clear living mammalian tissues by targeting responsible genes. We are conducting a genome-wide CRISPR activation screen to find genes which confer transparency. This contribution seeks to report on progress, challenges, and opportunities of this technology for biophotonics research, and more generally its potential towards a system level understanding of cellular biophysics.

As a next step, we are investigating how improved optical properties of individual cells influence the optical properties of 3D cell clusters, such as spheroids, using interspersed external fluorescent microspheres to quantify unbiased imaging quality.

Understanding the full potential of the optical plasticity of a tissue bears the potential of providing us with a broad toolkit, so that different genetic strategies can be applied depending on the specific nature of the various biological samples.