Actiflash is a photo-inducible tamoxifen analogue. Upon UV-light irradiation, the compound activates your chosen ERT2 protein fusion. It can be used to control transcription (using Gal4-UAS) or induce recombination (using Cre-lox) in space and/or time for in-vivo cell tracking experiments.
Sizes: 5mg (LJU-CIN-5), 50mg (LJU-CIN-50) Contact Us for this product
Catalogue Numbers: LJU-CIN-5 (5mg), LJU-CIN-50 (50mg) Contact Us for this product
Actiflash is a small steroid ligand that activates engineered proteins upon light induction. It can be used to precisely control protein activity down to the single cell level in live cell cultures and animals.
How does it work?
Actiflash is a tamoxifen-like caged-inducer called cyclofen. Upon UV-light illumination, optical-induced uncaging of Actiflash quickly releases proteins fused to the modified estrogen receptor ligand-binding domains ERT2. This allows them to translocate into the nucleus, activate transcription (using Gal4-UAS system) or induce recombination (using the Cre-lox one).
The protein expression can thus be simply controlled in time and space thanks to UV-light.
Photochemical stability
Caged Cyclofen-OH liberates Cyclofen-OH, a highly photostable compound in contrast to Tamoxifen-OH encountering photodegradation under illumination.
Favorable wavelength ranges for uncaging
Uncaging requires either UV-A light or a strong IR laser. Visible light is inactive, which facilitates the experiments with biological samples.
Simple conditioning
Caged Cyclofen-OH is cell-permeant and can be added either in the external medium or directly injected for conditioning.
Excellent chemical stability
Caged Cyclofen-OH does not generate any basal activation of protein function and it benefits from an excellent temporal resolution upon uncaging.
- Actiflash is a great R&D tool to convert your inducible ERT model into a photo-inducible one. It is very helpful if you want to control transcription (using Gal4-UAS) or induce recombination (using Cre-lox) in space and/or time for in-vivo cell tracking experiments and more.
- Actiflash has been successfully used with various cell lines as well as zebrafish embryos. Actiflash will work best on zebrafish embryos from 12 to 48hpf.
- Find below a plasmid list that can be used with Actiflash. All these plasmids are available from Addgene.
Technical Information
Lifetime: upon receipt, Actiflash is stable for years at 2-8°C. Once solubilized in a DMSO solution (typically at 10 mM), Actiflash can be stored at -20°C for several months. Always wrap the vials containing the aliquoted Actiflash with aluminium foil to protect it from light.
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