Figure 3.

Engineering approaches for manipulating dynamic signaling patterns. (A) Optogenetic tools can dynamically and selectively activate a pathway in isolation from endogenous receptor signaling contexts. (B) Blue light induces dimerization between the N-terminal CIB1 and Cry2 domain fused to cRaf, leading to the recruitment of cRaf to the membrane. Ras activates cRaf at the membrane, and thus it activates the downstream ERK pathway. (C) Microfluidic devices were used to control the flux of small-molecule inhibitors of the Notch and Wnt signaling pathway. In-phase oscillations of these two pathways led to proper mesoderm segmentation, whereas out-of-phase oscillation impaired segmentation.