Researchers used X-ray lasers, including SLAC’s LCLS, to control a modified cardiovascular drug with light and captured snapshots showing how it binds to proteins.
Key takeaways:
- Beta blockers bind to protein receptors that are key to fight-or-flight responses, leading to effects such as lowered heart rate and blood pressure.
- Using X-ray free-electron lasers at SLAC and in Switzerland, an international team of researchers investigated a beta blocker modified with a light-sensitive bond.
- They controlled the drug’s interaction using light and reconstructed X-ray images of the reaction, demonstrating how light could be used to improve medications.
Researchers are illuminating a new route for drug delivery – literally, by controlling drugs with light. Recently, an international team led by the Swiss Paul Scherrer Institute and including researchers from the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory used light to control a modified beta blocker and took X-ray laser snapshots of its interaction with a protein receptor.
Not only did the team demonstrate they could control the beta blocker medicine with light, but they also captured 3D images of the interaction at multiple time points. The images revealed that light can switch the beta blocker between different positions on the receptor, which suggests it may be possible to fine tune the drug’s potency while it’s in the body. The findings, published in the journal Angewandte Chemie, also demonstrate how X-ray lasers like the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) can be harnessed to study medicines at the atomic level. This can aid the design of drugs that precisely target protein receptors and therefore have fewer side effects.
Read more on the SLAC website