Team:Cambridge/Project/Future

In Vivo

In Vitro

Microscopy

Under 'reflection confocal microscopy' (illuminating the sample from above, collecting light at the same frequency as the illlumination), all bacteria give interesting optical effects, putatively due to thin-film effects around the membrane layers. This makes this particular tool less useful than hoped for investigating the optical effects of reflectin in-vivo.

Software

Further Work

No research group has yet induced exogenously-introduced reflectin to give colour in-vivo. It is unlikely that it is folding correctly, whether over-expressed or induced at low levels. Aiding in-vivo folding, e.g. through protein engineering could restore some of the optical effects seen in the squid; it should be borne in mind however that there is excellent evidence that the protein requires an associated membrane complex for its optical function (Tao et al. Biomaterials 5, pp. 793-801).

A number of research groups are interested in developing reflectin as a novel bio-reporter. Within the squid the colour of the protein structure is dynamically altered through phosphorylation on specific residues. If this effect could be recreated in-vivo a coloured reporter could be made to result that continually reports on changes in signal.

The team have demonstrated that thin films of reflectin have interesting in-vitro properties, not least the ability to display colour from across the entire visible spectrum. Should the films be made to change colour reliably in response to e.g. an applied charge, novel displays could be formed without some of the disadvantages of current technology, such as the need for a continual backlight.