A rhodopsin in the brain functions in circadian photoentrainment in Drosophila.

ABSTRACT: Animals partition their daily activity rhythms through their internal circadian clocks, which are synchronized by oscillating day-night cycles of light. The fruitfly Drosophila melanogaster senses day-night cycles in part through rhodopsin-dependent light reception in the compound eye and photoreceptor cells in the Hofbauer-Buchner eyelet. A more noteworthy light entrainment pathway is mediated by central pacemaker neurons in the brain. The Drosophila circadian clock is extremely sensitive to light. However, the only known light sensor in pacemaker neurons, the flavoprotein cryptochrome (Cry), responds only to high levels of light in vitro. These observations indicate that there is an additional light-sensing pathway in fly pacemaker neurons. Here we describe a previously uncharacterized r

SUBMITTER: Ni JD 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5476302 | biostudies-literature | 2017 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature