A Rationally Designed Building Block of the Putative Magnetoreceptor MagR
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Abstract:
The ability of animals to perceive guidance cues from Earth's magnetic field for orientation and navigation has been supported by a wealth of behavioral experiments, yet the nature of this sensory modality remains fascinatingly unresolved and wide open for discovery. MagR has been proposed as a putative magnetoreceptor based on its intrinsic magnetism and its complexation with a previously suggested key protein in magnetosensing, cryptochrome, to form a rod-like polymer structure. Here, we report a rationally designed single-chain tetramer of MagR (SctMagR), serving as the building block of the hierarchical assembly of MagR polymer. The magnetic trapping experiment and direct magnetic measurement of SctMagR demonstrated the possibility of magnetization of nonmagnetic cells via overexpressing a single protein, which has great potential in various applications. SctMagR, as reported in this study, serves as a prototype of designed magnetic biomaterials inspired by animal magnetoreception. The features of SctMagR provide insights into the unresolved origin of the intrinsic magnetic moment, which is of considerable interest in both biology and physics. © 2022 Bioelectromagnetics Society.Keywords:
Magnetoreception
Magnetism
Bioelectromagnetics
The Radical Pair Model proposes that the avian magnetic compass is based on spin-chemical processes: since the ratio between the two spin states singlet and triplet of radical pairs depends on their alignment in the magnetic field, it can provide information on magnetic directions. Cryptochromes, blue light-absorbing flavoproteins, with flavin adenine dinucleotide as chromophore, are suggested as molecules forming the radical pairs underlying magnetoreception. When activated by light, cryptochromes undergo a redox cycle, in the course of which radical pairs are generated during photo-reduction as well as during light-independent re-oxidation. This raised the question as to which radical pair is crucial for mediating magnetic directions. Here, we present the results from behavioural experiments with intermittent light and magnetic field pulses that clearly show that magnetoreception is possible in the dark interval, pointing to the radical pair formed during flavin re-oxidation. This differs from the mechanism considered for cryptochrome signalling the presence of light and rules out most current models of an avian magnetic compass based on the radical pair generated during photo-reduction. Using the radical pair formed during re-oxidation may represent a specific adaptation of the avian magnetic compass.
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Flavoprotein
Flavin adenine dinucleotide
Chromophore
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Humans are not believed to have a magnetic sense, even though many animals use the Earth's magnetic field for orientation and navigation. One model of magnetosensing in animals proposes that geomagnetic fields are perceived by light-sensitive chemical reactions involving the flavoprotein cryptochrome (CRY). Here we show using a transgenic approach that human CRY2, which is heavily expressed in the retina, can function as a magnetosensor in the magnetoreception system of Drosophila and that it does so in a light-dependent manner. The results show that human CRY2 has the molecular capability to function as a light-sensitive magnetosensor and reopen an area of sensory biology that is ready for further exploration in humans. In animals, cryptochrome proteins are thought to be the detectors of the Earth's magnetic field, but humans have not been shown to posess mangetosensing capabilities. Foleyet al. demonstrate that the human cryptochrome protein, CRY2, when expressed in Drosophila melanogastercan mediate magnetoreception in a light-dependent manner.
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Insects and birds are able of detecting magnetic field to sense direction,but how this is done remained not quite understood. Accumulating evidence suggested that a protein located in the retina of migratory birds,known as cryptochrome,was a key sensory molecule. A radical pair generated when cryptochrome absorbs light is known to process photochemical transformation and detect magnetic field. In human,cryptochrome participates in the transcription-translation feedback loops of circadian rhythms.When transfected into fruit fly,it alters the sensing of magnetic field. Here,we summarize the recent progresses on cryptochrome studies,as well as the underlining mechanism related to light-dependent magnetoreception. The implication and perspective for future research is discussed.
Magnetoreception
Artificial Light
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Author(s): Todd, Phillise Tiffeny | Advisor(s): Ritz, Thorsten | Abstract: While migratory birds have long been known to use the Earth's magnetic field for navigation, the precise biophysical mechanism behind this magnetic sense remains unconfirmed. A leading theory of magnetoreception suggests a chemical compass model with a yet undetermined molecular reaction site and unknown magnetically sensitive reactants. The cryptochrome photoreceptor has emerged as a promising candidate site. This investigation numerically models the first order kinetics of cryptochrome mediated photoreception, in order to evaluate its ability to function as a magnetic sensor and transduce orientation information along a neural pathway. A signal-to-noise ratio is defined to quantify the threshold for the functioning of a cryptochrome-based chemical compass. The model suggests that a flavin-superoxide radical pair in cryptochrome functions as the chemical reactants for magnetoreception. Such a cryptochrome-based signal transduction model reasonably predicts the general light intensity and wavelength effects that have been experimentally observed in migratory birds.
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Abstract The mechanisms that facilitate animal magnetoreception have both fascinated and confounded scientists for decades and its precise biophysical origin remains unclear. Among the proposed primary magnetic sensors is the flavoprotein, cryptochrome, which is thought to provide geomagnetic information via a quantum effect in a light-initiated radical pair reaction. Despite recent advances in the radical pair model of magnetoreception from theoretical, molecular and animal behaviour studies, very little is known of a possible signal transduction mechanism. We report a substantial effect of magnetic field exposure on seizure response in Drosophila larvae. The effect is dependent on cryptochrome, the presence and wavelength of light and is blocked by prior ingestion of typical antiepileptic drugs. These data are consistent with a magnetically-sensitive, photochemical radical pair reaction in cryptochrome that alters levels of neuronal excitation and represent a vital step forward in our understanding of the signal transduction mechanism involved in animal magnetoreception.
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Cryptochromes are photosensory receptors mediating light regulation of growth and development in plants,as well as the optical signaling in flies and other insects.Meanwhile it performs functions at the core of the mammalian circadian clock.Cryptochrome is widely accepted as a magnetoreception receptor,in which a radical pair between conserved tryptophan triad and cofactor flavin adenine dinucleotide plays a central role in light-dependent magnetoreception.It was reviewed in this paper the classification and structures of cryptochromes and the research progress of cryptochromes light-dependent magnetoreception mechanism,chanllenges and questions for future investigation were also discussed.
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Flavin mononucleotide
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Magnetic compass orientation by amphibians, and some insects, is mediated by a light-dependent magnetoreception mechanism. Cryptochrome photopigments, best known for their role in circadian rhythms, are proposed to mediate such responses. In this paper, we explore light-dependent properties of magnetic sensing at three levels: (i) behavioural (wavelength-dependent effects of light on magnetic compass orientation), (ii) physiological (photoreceptors/photopigment systems with properties suggesting a role in magnetoreception), and (iii) molecular (cryptochrome-based and non-cryptochrome-based signalling pathways that are compatible with behavioural responses). Our goal is to identify photoreceptors and signalling pathways that are likely to play a specialized role in magnetoreception in order to definitively answer the question of whether the effects of light on magnetic compass orientation are mediated by a light-dependent magnetoreception mechanism, or instead are due to input from a non-light-dependent (e.g. magnetite-based) magnetoreception mechanism that secondarily interacts with other light-dependent processes.
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Birds can use the geomagnetic field for compass orientation. Behavioral experiments, mostly with migrating passerines, revealed three characteristics of the avian magnetic compass: (1) it works spontaneously only in a narrow functional window around the intensity of the ambient magnetic field, but can adapt to other intensities, (2) it is an “inclination compass”, not based on the polarity of the magnetic field, but the axial course of the field lines, and (3) it requires short-wavelength light from UV to 565 nm Green. The Radical Pair-Model of magnetoreception can explain these properties by proposing spin-chemical processes in photopigments as underlying mechanism. Applying radio frequency fields, a diagnostic tool for radical pair processes, supports an involvement of a radical pair mechanism in avian magnetoreception: added to the geomagnetic field, they disrupted orientation, presumably by interfering with the receptive processes. Cryptochromes have been suggested as receptor molecules. Five types of cryptochromes are found in the eyes of birds. Cry1a, the most likely candidate, is located at the membranes of the disks in the outer segments of the UV-cones in chickens and robins. Immuno-histochemical studies show that it is activated by the wavelengths of light that allow magnetic compass orientation in birds. Within the cryptochrome photocycle, the radical pair formed during re-oxidation appears to be the crucial one for magnetoreception.
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The magnetic compass sense of migratory birds is thought to rely on magnetically sensitive radical pairs formed photochemically in cryptochrome proteins in the retina. Here we assess the impact of protein dynamics on the sensitivity of the compass.
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Abstract Many animals use the Earth’s geomagnetic field for orientation and navigation. Yet, the molecular and cellular underpinnings of the magnetic sense remain largely unknown. A biophysical model proposed that magnetoreception can be achieved through quantum effects of magnetically-sensitive radical pairs formed by the photoexcitation of cryptochrome (CRY) proteins. Studies in Drosophila are the only ones to date to have provided compelling evidence for the ultraviolet (UV)-A/blue light-sensitive type 1 CRY (CRY1) involvement in animal magnetoreception, and surprisingly extended this discovery to the light-insensitive mammalian-like type 2 CRYs (CRY2s) of both monarchs and humans. Here, we show that monarchs respond to a reversal of the inclination of the Earth’s magnetic field in an UV-A/blue light and CRY1, but not CRY2, dependent manner. We further demonstrate that both antennae and eyes, which express CRY1, are magnetosensory organs. Our work argues that only light-sensitive CRYs function in animal light-dependent inclination-based magnetic sensing.
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