Near- infrared nanosensors enable optical imaging of oxytocin with selectivity over vasopressin in acute mouse brain slices

• 成果类型: Article
• 署名作者: Mun, Jaewan; Navarro, Nicole; Jeong, Sanghwa; Ouassil, Nicholas; Leem, Esther; Beyene, Abraham G.; Landry, Markita P.; Murphy, Catherine
• 署名单位: University of California System; University of California Berkeley; University of California System; University of California Berkeley; University of California System; University of California Berkeley; Pusan National University; Howard Hughes Medical Institute; Chan Zuckerberg Initiative (CZI)
• 刊物名称: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• ISSN/ISSBN: 0027-10244
• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2314795121
• 发表日期: 2024-06-25
• 关键词: thyrotropin-releasing-hormone; electrical-stimulation; paraventricular nucleus; cerebrospinal-fluid; male-rats; dopamine; receptor; binding; plasma; modulation

摘要

Oxytocin plays a critical role in regulating social behaviors, yet our understanding of its function in both neurological health and disease remains incomplete. Real - time oxytocin imaging probes with spatiotemporal resolution relevant to its endogenous signaling are required to fully elucidate oxytocin's role in the brain. Herein, we describe a nearinfrared oxytocin nanosensor (nIROXT), a synthetic probe capable of imaging oxytocin in the brain without interference from its structural analogue, vasopressin. nIROXT leverages the inherent tissue - transparent fluorescence of single - walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT) and the molecular recognition capacity of an oxytocin receptor peptide fragment to selectively and reversibly image oxytocin. We employ these nanosensors to monitor electrically stimulated oxytocin release in brain tissue, revealing oxytocin release sites with a median size of 3 i.t m in the paraventricular nucleus of C57BL/6 mice, which putatively represents the spatial diffusion of oxytocin from its point of release. These data demonstrate that covalent SWCNT constructs, such as nIROXT, are powerful optical tools that can be leveraged to measure neuropeptide release in brain tissue.