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Volume 29 #4

Contents

  1. Molecular physiology of vision: half-century of study
  2. Optogenetics and vision
  3. Specifics of physiological and biochemical mechanisms of excitation and adaptation in retinal cones
  4. A model of orientation recognition mechanisms for the 3-bar two-grade optotypes
  5. Structural and functional basis of ambivalent (aerial-aquatic) vision in aquatic mammals
  6. Individual optimization of functional treatment in the cases of impaired binocular vision
  7. Changes of the choroid of different age groups of Japanese quails Coturnix japonica depending on the spectrum composition of illumination

Specifics of physiological and biochemical mechanisms of excitation and adaptation in retinal cones

© 2015 V. I.Govardovskii, L.A. Astakhova, M. L. Firsov

Institute for Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry, RAS 194223 Sankt-Petersburg, Thorez prospect, 44

Received 09 Jun 2015

We provide a review of recent data on features of the phototransduction in retinal cones and discuss the problem of the evolutionary origins of rods and cones. Functioning in the system of nocturnal (rod) or diurnal (cone) vision poses different challenges to the two types of photoreceptor cells. Rods are highly sensitive, react to light slowly and saturate (get blinded) at moderate diurnal illumination levels. Cones are 100 to 1000 times less sensitive than rods, but react an order of magnitude faster and do not saturate at brightest illuminations encountered in nature. Last years, a big body of biochemical and electrophysiological data was obtained on key features of the phototransduction cascade in cones that enable them to support diurnal vision. It is shown that the speed of the activation of the cascade (biochemical amplification) in cones is as high as in rods. However, all turn-off reactions proceed in cones an order of magnitude faster thus reducing cones’ sensitivity. This way, cones efficiently exchange sensitivity for the speed of the reaction. Cones’ ability to function at high light intensity is supported, besides their low sensitivity, by a high speed of regeneration of bleached cone visual pigments. The fast regeneration is made possible by the far faster decay of photoproducts of cone visual pigments compared to that in rods. It is generally accepted that cones represent evolutionary primary type of photoreceptor since vision obviously emerged in organisms living in good lighting conditions. Rods are considered to be a later specialization to vision at low light intensities. However, low sensitivity of the ancestral photoreceptor was the result of its primitiveness while in modern cones the low sensitivity is the result of optimization for very complex a function. It appears that the cone function relies on more refined biochemical machinery than in rods. The appearance of modern rods and cones is the result of the specialization of the ancestral photoreceptor cell in two directions: to achieve maximum sensitivity and to ensure perfect function at diurnal illuminances. The primary photoreceptor was neither cone nor rod, and the question of what type of the cell, rod or cone, is more ancient may be meaningless.

Key words: rods, cones, excitation, light adaptation, dark adaptation, evolution

Cite: Govardovskii V. I., Astakhova L. A., Firsov M. L. Spetsifika fiziologicheskikh i biokhimicheskikh mekhanizmov vozbuzhdeniya i adaptatsii kolbochek setchatki [Specifics of physiological and biochemical mechanisms of excitation and adaptation in retinal cones]. Sensornye sistemy [Sensory systems]. 2015. V. 29(4). P. 296-308 (in Russian).

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