Recreated Ancestral Opsin Associated with Marine to Freshwater Croaker Invasion Reveals Kinetic and Spectral Adaptation.

ABSTRACT: Rhodopsin, the light-sensitive visual pigment expressed in rod photoreceptors, is specialized for vision in dim-light environments. Aquatic environments are particularly challenging for vision due to the spectrally dependent attenuation of light, which can differ greatly in marine and freshwater systems. Among fish lineages that have successfully colonized freshwater habitats from ancestrally marine environments, croakers are known as highly visual benthic predators. In this study, we isolate rhodopsins from a diversity of freshwater and marine croakers and find that strong positive selection in rhodopsin is associated with a marine to freshwater transition in South American croakers. In order to determine if this is accompanied by significant shifts in visual abilities, we resurrected anc

SUBMITTER: Van Nynatten A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8097279 | biostudies-literature | 2021 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature