Activation, deactivation, and adaptation in vertebrate photoreceptor cells.
Visual transduction captures widespread interest because its G-protein signaling motif recurs throughout nature yet is uniquely accessible for study in the photoreceptor cells. The light-activated currents generated at the photoreceptor outer segment provide an easily observed real-time measure of the output of the signaling cascade, and the ease of obtaining pure samples of outer segments in reasonable quantity facilitates biochemical experiments. A quiet revolution in the study of the mechanism has occurred during the past decade with the advent of gene-targeting techniques. These have made it possible to observe how transduction is perturbed by the deletion, overexpression, or mutation of specific components of the transduction apparatus.
Burns
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Department of Neurobiology, Stanford University Medical Center, Stanford, California 94305, USA. mburns@stanford.edu dbaylor@stanford.edu
Baylor
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D000818:Animals; D019204:GTP-Binding Proteins / Q000502:physiology; D006801:Humans; D020419:Photoreceptor Cells, Vertebrate / Q000502:physiology*; D017949:Retinal Cone Photoreceptor Cells / Q000502:physiology; D017948:Retinal Rod Photoreceptor Cells / Q000502:physiology; D015398:Signal Transduction; D014785:Vision, Ocular / Q000502:physiology*
D019204:GTP-Binding Proteins