Patent ID: 8202699

Claim:
A method for increasing or decreasing ion conductivity of a membrane, the method comprising inserting one or more directly light-controlled ion channels into a membrane, wherein the one or more directly light-controlled ion channels is a biological photoreceptor, and wherein the one or more directly light-controlled ion channels comprises: (a) SEQ ID NO:2, (b) amino acids 1 to 315 of SEQ ID NO:2, or (c) an amino acid sequence having at least five transmembrane helices, wherein said amino acid sequence comprises one or more conservative amino acid changes relative to the corresponding region of SEQ ID NO:2 provided that the amino acid sequence has at least 52.7% identity to SEQ ID NO:2, and comprises aspartic acid at position 253 of SEQ ID NO:2, lysine at position 257 of SEQ ID NO:2, tryptophan at position 260 of SEQ ID NO:2, glutamic acid at position 123 of SEQ ID NO:2, and histidine or arginine at position 134 of SEQ ID NO:2; and a light-sensitive retinal or retinal derivative.