Dynamic control of microbial movement by photoswitchable ATP antagonists

Adenosine triphosphate (ATP) is the energy source for various biochemical processes and biomolecular motors in living things. Development of ATP antagonists and their stimuli-controlled actions offer a novel approach to regulate biological processes. Herein, we developed azobenzene-based photoswitchable ATP antagonists for controlling the activity of motor proteins; cytoplasmic and axonemal dyneins. The new ATP antagonists showed reversible photoswitching of cytoplasmic dynein activity in an in vitro dynein-microtubule system due to the trans and cis photoisomerization of their azobenzene segment. Importantly, our ATP antagonists reversibly regulated the axonemal dynein motor activity for the force generation in a demembranated model of Chlamydomonas reinhardtii. We found that the trans and cis isomers of ATP antagonists significantly differ in their affinity to the ATP binding site.