Recent Advances and Perspectives of Fluorescent Biosensors

A special issue of Biosensors (ISSN 2079-6374). This special issue belongs to the section "Biosensor and Bioelectronic Devices".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 November 2024 | Viewed by 1141

Special Issue Editors


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Guest Editor
Faculty of Engineering, Department of Applied Chemistry, Saitama University, Saitama, Japan
Interests: live imaging

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Guest Editor
Faculty of Science and Technology, Department of Biosciences and Informatics, Keio University, Tokyo, Japan
Interests: fluorescence imaging

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Tools to elucidate biological phenomena have been regularly developed. Especially in the last few decades, fluorescent biosensors as different approaches from omics studies have continued to be developed together with devices employed for quantitative detections of biomolecule dynamics and activities. Though we have several fluorescence measurement methods based on fluorescence intensity, polarization, lifetime, correlation, etc., and exploit them properly, most fluorescent biosensors have been designed and fabricated for target-specific, spatiotemporal resolvable applications in living cells and their signals have been designed as amplifiable to be applied in the biological, medicinal, clinical fields, among others.

Fluorescent biosensors generally consist of fluorescent organic compounds, proteins, nanoparticles and their combinations. Therefore, improvements from various aspects have been made to expand dynamic ranges and enhance selectivity or sensitivity for monitoring. Those trials have enabled researchers to accomplish high-content imaging of cellular signaling and high-throughput screening of agonists or antagonists for objectives.

This Special Issue aims to highlight high-quality results including original research articles and comprehensive reviews in the field of fluorescent biosensors. Articles that focus on or propose new ideas and new directions are particularly welcome.

Dr. Miho Suzuki
Dr. Yutaka Shindo
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Biosensors is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • fluorescent sensor
  • ratiometric sensor
  • fluorescent protein
  • synthetic probe
  • quantum dot
  • optogenetic reporter
  • genetically encoded probe
  • live imaging
  • FRET
  • FLIM
  • FCS
  • aggregation-induced emission

Published Papers (2 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 4310 KiB  
Article
Suppression of Contraction Raises Calcium Ion Levels in the Heart of Zebrafish Larvae
by Antonio Martinez-Sielva, Manuel Vicente, Jussep Salgado-Almario, Aarón Garcia-Blazquez, Beatriz Domingo and Juan Llopis
Biosensors 2024, 14(5), 219; https://doi.org/10.3390/bios14050219 - 27 Apr 2024
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Abstract
Zebrafish larvae have emerged as a valuable model for studying heart physiology and pathophysiology, as well as for drug discovery, in part thanks to its transparency, which simplifies microscopy. However, in fluorescence-based optical mapping, the beating of the heart results in motion artifacts. [...] Read more.
Zebrafish larvae have emerged as a valuable model for studying heart physiology and pathophysiology, as well as for drug discovery, in part thanks to its transparency, which simplifies microscopy. However, in fluorescence-based optical mapping, the beating of the heart results in motion artifacts. Two approaches have been employed to eliminate heart motion during calcium or voltage mapping in zebrafish larvae: the knockdown of cardiac troponin T2A and the use of myosin inhibitors. However, these methods disrupt the mechano-electric and mechano-mechanic coupling mechanisms. We have used ratiometric genetically encoded biosensors to image calcium in the beating heart of intact zebrafish larvae because ratiometric quantification corrects for motion artifacts. In this study, we found that halting heart motion by genetic means (injection of tnnt2a morpholino) or chemical tools (incubation with para-aminoblebbistatin) leads to bradycardia, and increases calcium levels and the size of the calcium transients, likely by abolishing a feedback mechanism that connects contraction with calcium regulation. These outcomes were not influenced by the calcium-binding domain of the gene-encoded biosensors employed, as biosensors with a modified troponin C (Twitch-4), calmodulin (mCyRFP1-GCaMP6f), or the photoprotein aequorin (GFP-aequorin) all yielded similar results. Cardiac contraction appears to be an important regulator of systolic and diastolic Ca2+ levels, and of the heart rate. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances and Perspectives of Fluorescent Biosensors)
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14 pages, 4396 KiB  
Article
Live Cell Monitoring of Separase Activity, a Key Enzymatic Reaction for Chromosome Segregation, with Chimeric FRET-Based Molecular Sensor upon Cell Cycle Progression
by Md. Shazadur Rahman, Yutaka Shindo, Kotaro Oka, Wataru Ikeda and Miho Suzuki
Biosensors 2024, 14(4), 192; https://doi.org/10.3390/bios14040192 - 15 Apr 2024
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Abstract
Separase is a key cysteine protease in the separation of sister chromatids through the digestion of the cohesin ring that inhibits chromosome segregation as a trigger of the metaphase–anaphase transition in eukaryotes. Its activity is highly regulated by binding with securin and cyclinB-CDK1 [...] Read more.
Separase is a key cysteine protease in the separation of sister chromatids through the digestion of the cohesin ring that inhibits chromosome segregation as a trigger of the metaphase–anaphase transition in eukaryotes. Its activity is highly regulated by binding with securin and cyclinB-CDK1 complex. These bindings prevent the proteolytic activity of separase until the onset of anaphase. Chromosome missegregation and aneuploidy are frequently observed in malignancies. However, there are some difficulties in biochemical examinations due to the instability of separase in vitro and the fact that few spatiotemporal resolution approaches exist for monitoring live separase activity throughout mitotic processes. Here, we have developed FRET-based molecular sensors, including GFP variants, with separase-cleavable sequences as donors and covalently attached fluorescent dyes as acceptor molecules. These are applicable to conventional live cell imaging and flow cytometric analysis because of efficient live cell uptake. We investigated the performance of equivalent molecular sensors, either localized or not localized inside the nucleus under cell cycle control, using flow cytometry. Synchronized cell cycle progression rendered significant separase activity detections in both molecular sensors. We obtained consistent outcomes with localized molecular sensor introduction and cell cycle control by fluorescent microscopic observations. We thus established live cell separase activity monitoring systems that can be used specifically or statistically, which could lead to the elucidation of separase properties in detail. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Recent Advances and Perspectives of Fluorescent Biosensors)
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