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Eel visual pigments revisited: The fate of retinal cones during metamorphosis

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 March 2008

JAMES K. BOWMAKER ,
MA'AYAN SEMO ,
DAVID M. HUNT  and
GLEN JEFFERY
JAMES K. BOWMAKER*
Affiliation:
UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
MA'AYAN SEMO
Affiliation:
UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
DAVID M. HUNT
Affiliation:
UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
GLEN JEFFERY
Affiliation:
UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, London, United Kingdom
*
Address correspondence and reprint requests to: J.K. Bowmaker, Division of Visual Science, UCL Institute of Ophthalmology, University College London, Bath Street, London EC1V 9El, UK. E-mail: j.bowmaker@ucl.ac.uk
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Abstract

During their complex life history, anguilliform eels go through a major metamorphosis when developing from a fresh water yellow eel into a deep-sea silver eel. In addition to major changes in body morphology, the visual system also adapts from a fresh water teleost duplex retina with rods and cones, to a specialized deep-sea retina containing only rods. The history of the rods is well documented with an initial switch from a porphyropsin to a rhodopsin (P5232 to P5011) and then a total change in gene expression with the down regulation of a “freshwater” opsin and its concomitant replacement by the expression of a typical “deep-sea” opsin (P5011 to P4821). Yellow eels possess only two spectral classes of single cones, one sensitive in the green presumably expressing an RH2 opsin gene and the second sensitive in the blue expressing an SWS2 opsin gene. In immature glass eels, entering into rivers from the sea, the cones contain mixtures of rhodopsins and porphyropsins, whereas the fully freshwater yellow eels have cone pigments that are almost pure porphyropsins with peak sensitivities at about 540–545 nm and 435–440 nm, respectively. However, during the early stages of metamorphosis, the pigments switch to rhodopsins with the maximum sensitivity of the “green”-sensitive cone shifting to about 525 nm, somewhat paralleling, but preceding the change in rods. During metamorphosis, the cones are almost completely lost.

Keywords

AnguillaYellow eelConeMetamorphosisVisual pigment
Type
Research Article
Information
Visual Neuroscience , Volume 25 , Issue 3 , May 2008 , pp. 249 - 255
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2008

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