TY - JOUR
T1 - Evolutionary adaptation of visual pigments in geckos for their photic environment
AU - Kojima, Keiichi
AU - Matsutani, Yuki
AU - Yanagawa, Masataka
AU - Imamoto, Yasushi
AU - Yamano, Yumiko
AU - Wada, Akimori
AU - Shichida, Yoshinori
AU - Yamashita, Takahiro
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was supported in part by Grants-in-Aid for Scientific Research of MEXT to K.K. (15J02054), Y.I. (19K21848), Y.S. (16H02515), and T.Y. (16K07437); CREST, JST JPMJCR1753 (to T.Y.); a grant from the Kyoto University Foundation (T.Y.); and a grant from the Takeda Science Foundation (to T.Y.).
Publisher Copyright:
Copyright © 2021 The Authors, some rights reserved.
PY - 2021/10
Y1 - 2021/10
N2 - Vertebrates generally have a single type of rod for scotopic vision and multiple types of cones for photopic vision. Noteworthily, nocturnal geckos transmuted ancestral photoreceptor cells into rods containing not rhodopsin but cone pigments, and, subsequently, diurnal geckos retransmuted these rods into cones containing cone pigments. High sensitivity of scotopic vision is underlain by the rod’s low background noise, which originated from a much lower spontaneous activation rate of rhodopsin than of cone pigments. Here, we revealed that nocturnal gecko cone pigments decreased their spontaneous activation rates to mimic rhodopsin, whereas diurnal gecko cone pigments recovered high rates similar to those of typical cone pigments. We also identified amino acid residues responsible for the alterations of the spontaneous activation rates. Therefore, we concluded that the switch between diurnality and nocturnality in geckos required not only morphological transmutation of photoreceptors but also adjustment of the spontaneous activation rates of visual pigments.
AB - Vertebrates generally have a single type of rod for scotopic vision and multiple types of cones for photopic vision. Noteworthily, nocturnal geckos transmuted ancestral photoreceptor cells into rods containing not rhodopsin but cone pigments, and, subsequently, diurnal geckos retransmuted these rods into cones containing cone pigments. High sensitivity of scotopic vision is underlain by the rod’s low background noise, which originated from a much lower spontaneous activation rate of rhodopsin than of cone pigments. Here, we revealed that nocturnal gecko cone pigments decreased their spontaneous activation rates to mimic rhodopsin, whereas diurnal gecko cone pigments recovered high rates similar to those of typical cone pigments. We also identified amino acid residues responsible for the alterations of the spontaneous activation rates. Therefore, we concluded that the switch between diurnality and nocturnality in geckos required not only morphological transmutation of photoreceptors but also adjustment of the spontaneous activation rates of visual pigments.
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U2 - 10.1126/sciadv.abj1316
DO - 10.1126/sciadv.abj1316
M3 - Article
C2 - 34597144
AN - SCOPUS:85116626364
VL - 7
JO - Science advances
JF - Science advances
SN - 2375-2548
IS - 40
M1 - eabj1316
ER -