Scalable recorders of cellular calcium dynamics and molecular interactions across time

TCaMP, built on split-1POK in cultured human cells, records transient intracellular calcium dynamics on a continuous analog intensity scale, detecting stimulations as brief as ten minutes.

• Why it matters: Long-term, single-cell recording of calcium and molecular interactions across large populations is limited by the need for time-resolved readouts without relying on transcription or translation cascades.
• What they did: The split protein tape monomer reconstitutes when fused domains interact, then is incorporated as the protein tape elongates in live cells; calmodulin and its binding peptide create TCaMP.
• The result: TCaMP captures calcium dynamics from transmembrane entry, receptor activation, and intracellular store release, with hour-scale kinetics over days, enabling quantitative within-cell comparisons over long times.

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