Drosophila melanogaster rhodopsin Rh7 is a UV-to-visible light sensor with an extraordinarily broad absorption spectrum

Autor: Kazumi Sakai, Kei Tsutsui, Takahiro Yamashita, Naoyuki Iwabe, Keisuke Takahashi, Akimori Wada, Yoshinori Shichida
Jazyk: angličtina
Rok vydání: 2017
Předmět:
Zdroj: Scientific Reports, Vol 7, Iss 1, Pp 1-11 (2017)
Druh dokumentu: article
ISSN: 2045-2322
DOI: 10.1038/s41598-017-07461-9
Popis: Abstract The genome of Drosophila melanogaster contains seven rhodopsin genes. Rh1-6 proteins are known to have respective absorption spectra and function as visual pigments in ocelli and compound eyes. In contrast, Rh7 protein was recently revealed to function as a circadian photoreceptor in the brain. However, its molecular properties have not been characterized yet. Here we successfully prepared a recombinant protein of Drosophila Rh7 in mammalian cultured cells. Drosophila Rh7 bound both 11-cis-retinal and 11-cis-3-hydroxyretinal to form photo-pigments which can absorb UV light. Irradiation with UV light caused formation of a visible-light absorbing metarhodopsin that activated Gq-type of G protein. This state could be photoconverted back to the original state and, thus Rh7 is a Gq-coupled bistable pigment. Interestingly, Rh7 (lambda max = 350 nm) exhibited an unusual broad spectrum with a longer wavelength tail reaching 500 nm, whose shape is like a composite of spectra of two pigments. In contrast, replacement of lysine at position 90 with glutamic acid caused the formation of a normal-shaped absorption spectrum with maximum at 450 nm. Therefore, Rh7 is a unique photo-sensor that can cover a wide wavelength region by a single pigment to contribute to non-visual photoreception.
Databáze: Directory of Open Access Journals
Nepřihlášeným uživatelům se plný text nezobrazuje