GEVIBench › All sensors › Archon1
Archon1
Robotically evolved archaerhodopsin variant with improved brightness, millisecond kinetics, and exceptional photostability for long-duration recordings.
- Category: Opsin GEVI
- Published: 2018-02-26 — Nature Chemical Biology 2018
- Derived from: QuasAr2
- Response polarity: positive-going (fluorescence increases on depolarization)
- Spectrum: excitation peak 586 nm, emission peak 693 nm (Archon1)
- Two-photon compatible: no
- Plasmid: Addgene #108423
- Tags: Archaerhodopsin, Red
Headline values (as shown in the GEVIBench table)
| Metric | Value | Definition |
|---|---|---|
| Brightness (B/B_EGFP) | 0.0039× EGFP | Molecular brightness relative to EGFP (extinction coefficient × quantum yield, or a measured ratio). Sensors not measured against EGFP directly are placed through a chain of pairwise brightness comparisons, combined by geometric mean. |
| Kinetics τ_on / τ_off (ms) | 1.5 / 2.5 ms | Activation / decay time constants in ms (amplitude-weighted mean τ for multi-exponential fits). The value shown averages the measurements made at physiological temperature (≥33 °C); if there are none, it is the measurement closest to 33 °C. |
| ΔF/F per 100 mV | +43% (median of 4 measurements: +59.3%) | Steady-state fluorescence change for a 100 mV depolarization step (−70 → +30 mV); the sign gives the polarity. The table shows the first listed measurement; the median across measurements (one-photon preferred) is used for sorting. |
| ΔF/F per mV | 0.4% (estimated from the F–V curve) | Subthreshold sensitivity: fluorescence change per mV near rest (−90 to −50 mV). Where no value is reported directly, it is estimated from the F–V curve. |
| ΔF/F per AP | 30% (median of 3 measurements: 30%) | Fluorescence change per single action potential in neurons. The table shows the first listed measurement; the median across measurements (one-photon preferred) is used for sorting. |
| AP width (FWHM, ms) | 2.6 ms | Full width at half maximum of the optical spike waveform. |
| Photostability t75% @ 100 mW/mm² | 7.0 h | Time for fluorescence to fall to 75% of its initial value under one-photon illumination, linearly dose-scaled to 100 mW/mm² (t50% is used where the 75% crossing falls inside a fast initial transient). Two-photon curves are not dose-scaled and are excluded. |
| Papers using it (N_used) | 16 | Number of published research papers, tracked by GEVIBench, that used the sensor for an experiment (a popularity / track-record measure). |
Measurements and sources
Kinetics
- τ_on 1.51 ms, τ_off 2.53 ms at 32°C — Piatkevich 2018, Table S1
- τ_on 3.1 ms, τ_off 2.66 ms at 30°C — Tian 2023, Ext. Fig. 4e
ΔF/F per 100 mV
- +43%, 1P — Piatkevich 2018, Fig. 2e
- +48.6%, 1P — Milosevic 2020, Fig. 2D
- +81%, 1P — Villette 2019, Table 1
- +70%, 1P — Tian 2023, Ext. Fig. 4c
ΔF/F per action potential
- 30%, 1P — Piatkevich 2018, Fig. 2h
- 30%, 1P — Villette 2019, Table 1
- 22.4%, 1P — Piatkevich 2018, Table S2
AP width (FWHM)
- 2.5 ms at 2300 Hz sampling, Mouse, cultured hippocampal neurons, in vitro, 1P — Piatkevich 2018, Fig. 2h
- 6.1 ms at 500 Hz sampling, Mouse, cultured hippocampal neurons, in vitro, 1P — Milosevic 2020, Fig. 1D
- 2.7 ms at 1000 Hz sampling, Mouse, visual cortex layer-1 NDNF interneurons, in vivo, 1P — Tian 2023, Fig. 4d
- 1.1 ms at 2000 Hz sampling, Mouse, hippocampal CA1 parvalbumin interneurons, in vivo, 1P — Tian 2023, Fig. 4h
Brightness comparisons
- 2.78× the brightness of QuasAr2 — Piatkevich 2018, Fig. 2b
- 0.588× the brightness of QuasAr6a — Tian 2023, Ext. Fig. 4b
- 0.5× the brightness of QuasAr6b — Tian 2023, Ext. Fig. 4b
- 0.005076142131979695× the brightness of ASAP3 — Villette 2019, Table 1
- 0.14285714285714285× the brightness of nirButterfly — Song 2024, Fig. 2b
- 0.3333333333333333× the brightness of NovArch — Chien 2021, Fig. S1C
Photobleaching
- t75% = 601 s (extrapolated) at 4200 mW/mm², 1P — Tian 2023, Ext. Fig. 4f
- curve only (did not reach 75% within the measured window) at 800 mW/mm², 1P — Piatkevich 2018, Fig. 2i
Fluorescence–voltage (F–V) curve
ΔF/F (%) at each membrane potential, normalized to 0 at −70 mV: -100 mV: -12%; -80 mV: -5%; -60 mV: 3%; -40 mV: 12%; -20 mV: 21%; 0 mV: 30%; 20 mV: 40%; 40 mV: 50%; 60 mV: 60% — Piatkevich 2018, Fig. 2e
Research papers using Archon1 (16)
- A robotic multidimensional directed evolution approach applied to fluorescent voltage reporters — Piatkevich KD, Jung EE, Straub C, Linghu C, Park D, Suk HJ, Hochbaum DR, Goodwin D, Pnevmatikakis E, Pak N, Kawashima T, Yang CT, Rhoades JL, Shemesh O, Asano S, Yoon YG, Freifeld L, Saulnier JL, Riegler C, Engert F, Hughes T, Drobizhev M, Szabo B, Ahrens MB, Flavell SW, Sabatini BL, Boyden ES, Nature Chemical Biology 2018 (HEK293T cells, cultured mouse hippocampal neurons, mouse cortex brain slices, zebrafish larvae, C. elegans, in vitro/in vivo)
- Rhodopsin-based voltage imaging tools for use in muscles and neurons of Caenorhabditis elegans — Azimi Hashemi N, Bergs ACF, Schüler C, Scheiwe AR, Steuer Costa W, Bach M, Liewald JF, Gottschalk A, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2019 (C. elegans, body wall muscle, pharyngeal muscle, neurons, in vivo)
- In Vitro Testing of Voltage Indicators: Archon1, ArcLightD, ASAP1, ASAP2s, ASAP3b, Bongwoori-Pos6, BeRST1, FlicR1, and Chi-VSFP-Butterfly — Milosevic MM, Jang J, McKimm EJ, Zhu MH, Antic SD, eNeuro 2020 (HEK293 cells, in vitro; Mouse cortical neurons, in vitro)
- Voltage Imaging of Cardiac Cells and Tissue Using the Genetically Encoded Voltage Sensor Archon1 — Shroff SN, Das SL, Tseng HA, Noueihed J, Fernandez F, White JA, Chen CS, Han X, iScience 2020 (hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, in vitro; 3D engineered cardiac tissue, in vitro)
- High-fidelity estimates of spikes and subthreshold waveforms from 1-photon voltage imaging in vivo — Xie ME, Adam Y, Fan LZ, Böhm UL, Kinsella I, Zhou D, Rozsa M, Singh A, Svoboda K, Paninski L, Cohen AE, Cell Reports 2021 (Mouse hippocampus CA1 pyramidal neurons, in vivo; Mouse cortex layer 1 interneurons, in vivo)
- Plakophilin-2 truncating variants impair cardiac contractility by disrupting sarcomere stability and organization — Zhang K, Cloonan PE, Sundaram S, Liu F, Das SL, Ewoldt JK, Bays JL, Tomp S, Toepfer CN, Marsiglia JDC, Gorham J, Reichart D, Eyckmans J, Seidman JG, Seidman CE, Chen CS, Science Advances 2021 (hiPSC-derived cardiomyocytes, in vitro)
- Studying Synaptically Evoked Cortical Responses ex vivo With Combination of a Single Neuron Recording (Whole-Cell) and Population Voltage Imaging (Genetically Encoded Voltage Indicator) — Jang J, Zhu MH, Jogdand AH, Antic SD, Frontiers in Neuroscience 2021 (Mouse cortex layer 2/3 pyramidal neurons, acute brain slices, in vitro)
- Neuronal activity drives pathway-specific depolarization of peripheral astrocyte processes — Armbruster M, Naskar S, Garcia JP, Sommer M, Kim E, Adam Y, Haydon PG, Boyden ES, Cohen AE, Dulla CG, Nature Neuroscience 2022 (Mouse cortex astrocytes, acute brain slices, in vitro)
- Voltage imaging identifies spinal circuits that modulate locomotor adaptation in zebrafish — Böhm UL, Kimura Y, Kawashima T, Ahrens MB, Higashijima S, Engert F, Cohen AE, Neuron 2022 (Zebrafish larvae, spinal cord glutamatergic neurons, in vivo)
- Video-based pooled screening yields improved far-red genetically encoded voltage indicators — Tian H, Davis HC, Wong-Campos JD, Park P, Fan LZ, Gmeiner B, Begum S, Werley CA, Borja GB, Upadhyay H, Shah H, Jacques J, Qi Y, Parot V, Deisseroth K, Cohen AE, Nature Methods 2023 (Mouse cortex NDNF neurons, in vivo; Mouse hippocampus PV neurons, in vivo; Cultured neurons, in vitro)
- Characterization of two near-infrared genetically encoded voltage indicators — Song C, Matlashov ME, Shcherbakova DM, Antic SD, Verkhusha VV, Knöpfel T, Neurophotonics 2024 (Mouse hippocampal CA3 slices, acute brain slices, in vitro)
- Subthreshold electric fields bidirectionally modulate neurotransmitter release through axon polarization — Aberra AS, Miles MW, Hoppa MB, Brain Stimulation 2025 (Rat hippocampal neurons, dissociated culture, in vitro)
- Ultrafast two-photon imaging of a high-gain voltage indicator in awake behaving mice — Villette V, Chavarha M, Dimov IK, Bradley J, Pradhan L, Mathieu B, Evans SW, Chamberland S, Shi D, Yang R, Kim BB, Ayon A, Jalil A, St-Pierre F, Schnitzer MJ, Bi G, Toth K, Ding J, Dieudonne S, Lin MZ, Cell 2019 (HEK293 cells, cultured neurons, mouse brain in vivo)
- Screening and cellular characterization of genetically encoded voltage indicators based on near-infrared fluorescent proteins — Monakhov MV, Matlashov ME, Colavita M, Song C, Shcherbakova DM, Antic SD, Verkhusha VV, Knopfel T, ACS Chemical Neuroscience 2020 (HEK293T cells and cultured mouse hippocampal neurons, in vitro)
- QuasAr Odyssey: the origin of fluorescence and its voltage sensitivity in microbial rhodopsins — Silapetere A, Hwang S, Hontani Y, Fernandez Lahore RG, Balke J, Escobar FV, Tros M, Konold PE, Matis R, Croce R, Walla PJ, Hildebrandt P, Alexiev U, Kennis JTM, Sun H, Utesch T, Hegemann P, Nature Communications 2022 (ND7/23 cells, E. coli, in vitro)
- Detection of Membrane Potential-Dependent Rhodopsin Fluorescence Using Low-Intensity Light Emitting Diode for Long-Term Imaging — Kawanishi S, Kojima K, Shibukawa A, Sakamoto M, Sudo Y, ACS Omega 2023 (HEK293 and PC12 cells, in vitro)
Data and citation
- llms.txt — summary for language models
- llms-full.txt — every sensor in full (Markdown)
- gevis.json — all values and measurements with sources (JSON)
- gevis.csv — one row per sensor (CSV)
Cite GEVIBench as: Adam E. Cohen and Daozheng Gong (2026). Voltage imaging: A practical guide. Neuron. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuron.2026.08.002
Generated from the GEVIBench database on 2026-10-12.