title: Expression of visual and nonvisual opsins in American chameleon.
abstract: We previously characterized five visual opsin genes of American chameleon (Anolis carolinensis). Here we report its nonvisual opsin gene orthologous to the chicken pineal gland-specific opsin (p-opsin) gene. In the pure-cone American chameleon retina, all visual opsins including rod opsin are expressed. In both pineal and parietal eye, three visual opsins as well as P-opsin are expressed. Although opsins are detected in the pineal glands of a wide variety of vertebrates, Southern analysis suggests that the P-opsin gene is used mainly by birds and reptiles.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Syracuse University, NY 13244, USA.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kawamura
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yokoyama
mesh_terms: D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D015139:Blotting, Southern; D015870:Gene Expression; D008116:Lizards / Q000502:physiology*; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D010870:Pineal Gland / Q000378:metabolism; D016133:Polymerase Chain Reaction; D012160:Retina / Q000378:metabolism; D017299:Rod Opsins / Q000235:genetics* / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D017299:Rod Opsins