Homothorax controls a binary Rhodopsin switch in Drosophila ocelli.

ABSTRACT: Visual perception of the environment is mediated by specialized photoreceptor (PR) neurons of the eye. Each PR expresses photosensitive opsins, which are activated by a particular wavelength of light. In most insects, the visual system comprises a pair of compound eyes that are mainly associated with motion, color or polarized light detection, and a triplet of ocelli that are thought to be critical during flight to detect horizon and movements. It is widely believed that the evolutionary diversification of compound eye and ocelli in insects occurred from an ancestral visual organ around 500 million years ago. Concurrently, opsin genes were also duplicated to provide distinct spectral sensitivities to different PRs of compound eye and ocelli. In the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, Rhodop

SUBMITTER: Mishra AK 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8345863 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature