The Ion Channel Engineering (ICE) team, in collaboration with the Smart Nanoparticles (SNP) team, UMR 5297, and CNRS UPR 3212, is pleased to announce that the article entitled “Affinity-guided labeling reveals P2X7 nanoscale membrane redistribution during BV2 microglial activation” has now been published in its final version (version of record) in eLife.
In this work, we developed a new chemical method enabling the specific biotinylation of P2X7 receptors, allowing their labeling with Alexa Fluor 647–conjugated streptavidin. Implemented in BV2 cells, a murine microglial cell line, and combined with super-resolution imaging (dSTORM), this labeling strategy makes it possible to reveal and track the redistribution of P2X7 receptors at the single-molecule level in response to inflammatory signaling. The results demonstrate, for the first time, a clustering of P2X7 receptors following this inflammatory response. These findings open new therapeutic perspectives by identifying the nanoscale reorganization of P2X7 receptors as a potential target for the treatment of inflammation.

