New Fluorescent Probes for Detection of Neurotransmitters: GRAB Probes

Neuroscience research focuses on understanding how neurons connect and communicate with each other at the cellular and molecular levels, which has important implications for analyzing the neural circuits underlying animal cognition and behavior. Manipulating and detecting communication between neurons is a major tool in neuroscience research, and a number of genetically encoded fluorescent probes for the detection of neurotransmitters have been developed by coupling GPCRs and the circulating rearranged fluorescent protein cpFP. These genetically encoded fluorescent probes, named GRAB (GPCR Activation-Based) probes, were used to detect neurotransmitter dynamics in vivo with high spatial and temporal resolution.

The principle of the GRAB probe lies in the combination of neurotransmitter and GPCR causes the conformational change of the latter, which in turn causes the conformational change of cpFP, which in turn affects the microenvironment around its chromophore, and finally causes its fluorescence intensity to change, which can be detected by fluorescence microscopy.

Fig. 1 The principle of the green neurotransmitter probe (cpEGFP-based).

Fig. 2 The principle of the red neurotransmitter probe (cpmApple-based).

• High sensitivity.
• High specificity.
• High temporal and spatial resolution.
• High signal-to-noise ratio.
• Non-invasive.
• No additional test equipment is required.

Creative Biolabs provides a complete list of viral products of these probes (mainly AAV products) to help neuroscientists detect the dynamic changes of transmitters in vivo.

If you need a probe not shown above, please directly contact us.

Appendix