An essential experimental control for functional connectivity mapping with optogenetics

To establish functional connectivity between two candidate neurons that might form a circuit element, a common approach is to activate an optogenetic tool such as Chrimson in the candidate pre-synaptic neuron and monitor fluorescence of the calcium-sensitive indicator GCaMP in a candidate post-synaptic neuron. While performing such experiments in Drosophila, we found that low levels of leaky Chrimson expression can lead to strong artifactual GCaMP signals in presumptive postsynaptic neurons even when Chrimson is not intentionally expressed in any particular neurons. Withholding all-trans retinal, the chromophore required as a co-factor for Chrimson response to light, eliminates GCaMP signal but does not provide an experimental control for leaky Chrimson expression. Leaky Chrimson expression appears to be an inherent feature of current Chrimson transgenes, since artifactual connectivity was detected with Chrimson transgenes integrated into multiple genomic locations. While these false-positive signals may complicate the interpretation of functional connectivity experiments, we illustrate how a no-Gal4 negative control improves interpretability of functional connectivity assays. We also propose a simple but effective procedure to identify experimental conditions that minimize potentially incorrect interpretations caused by leaky Chrimson expression.