What is it about?
Rod photoreceptor outer segments are specialized ciliary architectures. Our imaging experiments reveal three properties of rods. First, intracellular calcium and key proteins have a concentration varying from the OS base to the tip. At the rod outer segment base, calcium is approximately 80 nM and increases up to ∼200 nM at the rod outer segment tip; second, there are spontaneous calcium flares in functional rods, and these flares are highly localized and are more pronounced at the rod outer segment tip; third, a bright flash of light at 488 nm induces a drop in calcium at the outer segment base but often a flare at the tip. This structural and functional gradient of the phototransduction machinery is a fundamental aspect of transduction in vertebrate photoreceptors.
Featured Image
Photo by Arteum.ro on Unsplash
Why is it important?
Our manuscript shows that this structural and functional gradient of the phototransduction machinery is a fundamental aspect of vertebrate photoreceptors and will have a major impact in the field.
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Calcium flares and compartmentalization in rod photoreceptors, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, August 2020, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences,
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2004909117.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page