Photochemistry of retinal chromophore in mouse melanopsin.

ABSTRACT: In mammals, melanopsin is exclusively expressed in intrinsically photosensitive retinal ganglion cells (ipRGCs), which play an important role in circadian photoentrainment and other nonimage-forming functions. These ipRGCs reside in the inner retina, far removed from the pigment epithelium, which synthesizes the 11-cis retinal chromophore used by rod and cone photoreceptors to regenerate opsin for light detection. There has been considerable interest in the identification of the melanopsin chromophore and in understanding the process of photopigment regeneration in photoreceptors that are not in proximity to the classical visual cycle. We have devised an immuno-magnetic purification protocol that allows melanopsin-expressing retinal ganglion cells to be isolated and collected from multiple

SUBMITTER: Walker MT 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2449331 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature