Optogenetic control of endoplasmic reticulum-mitochondria tethering.

Organelle interface emerges as a dynamic platform for a variety of biological responses. However, their study has been limited by the lack of tools to manipulate their occurrence in live cells spatiotemporally. Here, we report the development of a genetically-encoded light-inducible tethering (LIT) system allowing the induction of contacts between endoplasmic reticulum (ER) and mitochondria, taking advantage of a pair of light-dependent heterodimerization called iLID system. We demonstrate that the iLID-based LIT approach enables control of ER-mitochondria tethering with high spatiotemporal precision in various cell types including primary neurons, which will facilitate the functional study of ER-mitochondrial contacts.