This book provides a series of comprehensive views on various important aspects of vertebrate photoreceptors. The vertebrate retina is a tissue that provides unique experimental advantages to neuroscientists. Photoreceptor neurons are abundant in this tissue and they are readily identifiable and easily isolated. These features make them an outstanding model for studying neuronal mechanisms of signal transduction, adaptation, synaptic transmission, development, differentiation, diseases and regeneration. Thanks to recent advances in genetic analysis, it also is possible to link biochemical and physiological investigations to understand the molecular mechanisms of vertebrate photoreceptors within a functioning retina in a living animal. Photoreceptors are the most deeply studied sensory receptor cells, but readers will find that many important questions remain. We still do not know how photoreceptors, visual pigments and their signaling pathways evolved, how they were generated and how they are maintained. This book will make clear what is known and what is not known. The chapters are selected from fields of studies that have contributed to a broad understanding of the birth, development, structure, function and death of photoreceptor neurons. The underlying common word in all of the chapters that is used to describe these mechanisms is “molecule”. Only with this word can we understand how these highly specific neurons function and survive. It is challenging for even the foremost researchers to cover all aspects of the subject. Understanding photoreceptors from several different points of view that share a molecular perspective will provide readers with a useful interdisciplinary perspective.

A Top 25 CHOICE 2016 Title, and recipient of the CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title (OAT) Award. How much energy is released in ATP hydrolysis? How many mRNAs are in a cell? How genetically similar are two random people? What is faster, transcription or translation?Cell Biology by the Numbers explores these questions and dozens of others provid

The mechanism by which photoreceptor cells in the eyes of higher animals absorb light, giving rise to receptor potentials that initiate the visual process, is a subject of active research in biophysics today. The pace of this research and its multidisciplinary nature have made it difficult for the nonexpert to keep abreast of new discoveries. This book aims to provide a more coherent, compact summary of our knowledge about the field that has been available, serving as an up-to-date introduction to the role of photoreceptors in vision. The book is a self-contained, concise handbook for the reader who has at least a college level knowledge if cell biology, biochemistry, physical chemistry, neurobiology and physics. The authors describe the physical parameters of light and proceed to describe the mechanisms by which photoreceptors extract information about each parameter. The discussion of mechanisms is organized by discipline, following the general sequence of cellular morphology, visual pigment chemistery, and receptor physiology. Photoreceptors: their role in vision is an integrated sourcebook which will serve the novice as a 'stepping stone' to the vast and exciting scientific literature of the field.

Includes Proceedings Vols. 5631, 5636, 5637, 5642, 5643

This book provides the reader with background information on neurotransmitter release. Emphasis is placed on the rationale by which proteins are assigned specific functions rather than just providing facts about function.

This book offers comprehensive coverage of the most important areas in photoreceptors and light signalling. Photoreceptors enable most species to sense not only the presence of light but also the information, such as irradiance, colour or spectral distribution, direction and polarization of light. They are vital, therefore, in providing organisms with energy and information about their surroundings, such as day and night cycles. This book covers the range of photoreceptors that have been discovered to date and the broad range of methods used when researching how they operate, including: action spectroscopy; methods for protein purification; the whole range of molecular biological and genetic methods; and numerous spectroscopic methods, from absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy to X-ray diffraction, used for solving the structure of photoreceptors. Written by leading experts in the field, Photoreceptors and Light Signalling provides the reader with the most recent results and research. This book will be valued by a wide-range of readers, including students of photochemistry, photobiology, biology, chemistry and physics and other professionals in academia.

This volume foxuses on the status of Ca2+ ions in regulation of phototransduction, light adaptation and the recovery phase in vertebrate photoreceptors. Particular emphasis is given to Ca2+-binding proteins and their targets, among them particulate guanylate cyclases, GPCR-coupled kinases and cyclic nucleotide-gated cation channels. The book also expands our understanding of events invovling Ca2+ in the retinal pigment epithelium, in synaptic transmission and secondary retinal neurons. A significant part of the book is dedicated to the role of Ca2+ in invertebrate phototransduction, the best-studied phospholipid-mediated signal transduction pathway. Several chapters explore association of gene defects with human retina disease and the generation of animal models of retinal degeneration.

This book provides a series of comprehensive views on various important aspects of vertebrate photoreceptors. The vertebrate retina is a tissue that provides unique experimental advantages to neuroscientists. Photoreceptor neurons are abundant in this tissue and they are readily identifiable and easily isolated. These features make them an outstanding model for studying neuronal mechanisms of signal transduction, adaptation, synaptic transmission, development, differentiation, diseases and regeneration. Thanks to recent advances in genetic analysis, it also is possible to link biochemical and physiological investigations to understand the molecular mechanisms of vertebrate photoreceptors within a functioning retina in a living animal. Photoreceptors are the most deeply studied sensory receptor cells, but readers will find that many important questions remain. We still do not know how photoreceptors, visual pigments and their signaling pathways evolved, how they were generated and how they are maintained. This book will make clear what is known and what is not known. The chapters are selected from fields of studies that have contributed to a broad understanding of the birth, development, structure, function and death of photoreceptor neurons. The underlying common word in all of the chapters that is used to describe these mechanisms is “molecule”. Only with this word can we understand how these highly specific neurons function and survive. It is challenging for even the foremost researchers to cover all aspects of the subject. Understanding photoreceptors from several different points of view that share a molecular perspective will provide readers with a useful interdisciplinary perspective.

The above consideration indicates that at present many of the experi mental facts on PS in animals can be quantitatively explained within the limits of the "universal" photoreceptor membrane concept. Of course, existence of preferential orientation of the absorbing dipoles in the tubuli of the rhabdomeres can not be totally rejected. We hope that the concept of the "universal" photoreceptor membrane may serve as the useful instrument when dealing with newly discovered properties of visual cells so that true mechanisms of electrical and optical coupling will be searched for instead of assumptions being made on additional properties of the photoreceptor membrane in every new animal under study. 5. Absorption Spectrum of the Universal Photoreceptor Membrane and Spectral Sensitivity of the Photoreceptor 5. 1 Preliminary Notes It seems nearly self-evident that the absorption spectrum of the pho toreceptor membrane coincides exactly with that of the visual pigment it contains. Hence, the membrane must exhibit three bands of absorp tion - the principal band with its peak within the limits of visible spectrum (or a-peak); the secondary band between 340 and 380 nm (S peak); and the third, protein band, in the ultraviolet (UV) at 280 nm (COLLINS et al. , 1952). The main peak of absorption is located within the range 433-575 nm for retinol-based pigments and between 438 and 620 nm for 3-dehydroretinol-based pigments, the position of Amax de pending on many ecological factors.