Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists have designed a blue light-guided system to steer immune cells, a tool that could potentially be used to guide immune cells to the location of an infection or a developing cancer. The researchers reported their findings in the journal Developmental Cell.
To steer immune cells, the scientists genetically engineered human neutrophils, a type of white blood cell that fights infections, and macrophages, immune cells that engulf and absorb foreign, dead or damaged cells.
They engineered the cells to produce cryptochrome, a flavonoid compound found in many plants, which is activated by blue light. When scientists shined the blue light in laboratory dishes containing the immune cells, the light triggered a cascade of molecular signals and growth factors inside the cell, including Ras and AKT proteins.
With the changes to signals and growth factors in the immune cells, the scientists also found alterations to the immune cell’s cytoskeleton (a type of scaffolding that gives cells their shape) and its polarity (the cell’s shape and organization of intracellular materials). Within minutes, the immune cells were following and moving toward the blue light source.
