Predicting peak spectral sensitivities of vertebrate cone visual pigments using atomistic molecular simulations.

ABSTRACT: Vision is the dominant sensory modality in many organisms for foraging, predator avoidance, and social behaviors including mate selection. Vertebrate visual perception is initiated when light strikes rod and cone photoreceptors within the neural retina of the eye. Sensitivity to individual colors, i.e., peak spectral sensitivities (λmax) of visual pigments, are a function of the type of chromophore and the amino acid sequence of the associated opsin protein in the photoreceptors. Large differences in peak spectral sensitivities can result from minor differences in amino acid sequence of cone opsins. To determine how minor sequence differences could result in large spectral shifts we selected a spectrally-diverse group of 14 teleost Rh2 cone opsins for which sequences and λmax are experimen

SUBMITTER: Patel JS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5798944 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature