title: Adaptive evolution of color vision of the Comoran coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae).
abstract: The coelacanth, a "living fossil," lives near the coast of the Comoros archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Living at a depth of about 200 m, the Comoran coelacanth receives only a narrow range of light, at about 480 nm. To detect the entire range of "color" at this depth, the coelacanth appears to use only two closely related paralogous RH1 and RH2 visual pigments with the optimum light sensitivities (lambdamax) at 478 nm and 485 nm, respectively. The lambdamax values are shifted about 20 nm toward blue compared with those of the corresponding orthologous pigments. Mutagenesis experiments show that each of these coadapted changes is fully explained by two amino acid replacements.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biology, Syracuse University, Syracuse, NY 13244, USA. syokoyam@mailbox.syr.edu
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Yokoyama
authors.forename: H
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.forename: F B
authors.initials: FB
authors.lastname: Radlwimmer
authors.forename: N S
authors.initials: NS
authors.lastname: Blow
mesh_terms: D000222:Adaptation, Physiological; D000595:Amino Acid Sequence; D000818:Animals; D003118:Color Perception; D019143:Evolution, Molecular; D005091:Exons; D005399:Fishes / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology*; D008322:Mammals; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D016297:Mutagenesis, Site-Directed; D010802:Phylogeny; D011994:Recombinant Proteins / Q000096:biosynthesis; D015183:Restriction Mapping; D012168:Retinal Pigments / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D017299:Rod Opsins / Q000096:biosynthesis / Q000737:chemistry / Q000235:genetics*; D016415:Sequence Alignment; D017386:Sequence Homology, Amino Acid; D014714:Vertebrates
chemical_list: D011994:Recombinant Proteins; D012168:Retinal Pigments; D017299:Rod Opsins