title: Calcium metabolism in vertebrate photoreceptors.
abstract: So far all attempts to demonstrate a rapid, light-stimulated release of calcium from disks into the cytosol at a sufficiently high stoichiometry have failed. Either the release stoichiometry was too small or the velocity too slow to account for the amplification in visual transduction. The multitude of failures demonstrate that regulation of intracellular calcium is a very delicate process and the idea of a robust calcium channel in the disk membrane that is opened by rhodopsin itself is certainly an oversimplification. The strongest evidence in favour of the "calcium transmitter hypothesis" is the large calcium efflux from rods in a retina. However as long as the source of the calcium efflux inside the rod cells is unknown conclusions about the role of this calcium efflux are premature. Unfortunately, measurements of intracellular calcium, such as those by Brown and coworkers (93,94) in their pioneering work on photoreceptors in the ventral eye of Limulus, have not yet been feasible in vertebrates.
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001693:Biological Transport, Active; D002118:Calcium / Q000378:metabolism*; D004594:Electrophysiology; D006801:Humans; D008027:Light; D010786:Photoreceptor Cells / Q000378:metabolism*
chemical_list: D002118:Calcium