Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-gbm5v Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-22T12:58:17.005Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Cone visual pigments of the Australian marsupials, the stripe-faced and fat-tailed dunnarts: Sequence and inferred spectral properties

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  05 April 2005

JESSICA STRACHAN ,
LING-YU E. CHANG ,
MATTHEW J. WAKEFIELD ,
JENNIFER A. MARSHALL GRAVES  and
SAMIR S. DEEB
JESSICA STRACHAN
Affiliation:
Departments of Medicine and Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle
LING-YU E. CHANG
Affiliation:
Departments of Medicine and Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle
MATTHEW J. WAKEFIELD
Affiliation:
Research School of Biological Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia Centre for Bioinformation Science, JCSMR/MSI, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
JENNIFER A. MARSHALL GRAVES
Affiliation:
Research School of Biological Sciences, The Australian National University, Canberra, Australia
SAMIR S. DEEB
Affiliation:
Departments of Medicine and Genome Sciences, University of Washington, Seattle
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Studies of color vision in marsupial mammals have been very limited. Two photoreceptor genes have been characterized from the tammar wallaby, but a third cone pigment was suggested by microspectrophotometric measurements on cone photoreceptors in two other species, including the fat-tailed dunnart, Sminthopsis crassicaudata. To determine the sequence and infer absorption maxima of the cone photoreceptor pigments of S. crassicaudata and the related stripe-faced dunnart (Sminthopsis macroura), we have used evolutionarily conserved sequences of the cone pigments of other species, including the tammar wallaby, to design primers to amplify the S. macroura and S. crassicaudata pigment sequences by the polymerase chain reaction (PCR) using genomic DNA or retinal cDNA as a template. These primers will be useful for amplifying cone opsin coding sequences from a variety of vertebrates. Amplified products were directly sequenced to determine gene structure and coding sequences. The inferred amino acid sequences of the cone visual pigments indicated that both species have middle-wave-sensitive (MWS) pigments with a predicted absorption maximum (λmax) at 530 nm, and ultraviolet-sensitive (UVS) pigments with a predicted λmax at 360 nm. The MWS pigments of the two species differ by two, and UVS by three amino acid positions. No evidence was obtained for a third cone pigment in either species.

Keywords

Cone opsinsMarsupialsDunnartSpectral tuning
Type
Research Article
Information
Visual Neuroscience , Volume 21 , Issue 3 , May 2004 , pp. 223 - 229
Copyright
© 2004 Cambridge University Press

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

REFERENCES

Arrese, C.A., Hart, N.S., Thomas, N., Beazley, L.D., & Shand, J. (2002). Trichromacy in Australian marsupials. Current Biology 12, 657–660.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Asenjo, A.B., Rim, J., & Oprian, D.D. (1994). Molecular determinants of human red/green color discrimination. Neuron 12, 1131–1138.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Cowing, J.A., Poopalasundaram, S., Wilkie, S.E., Robinson, P.R., Bowmaker, J.K., & Hunt, D.M. (2002). The molecular mechanism for the spectral shifts between vertebrate ultraviolet- and violet-sensitive cone visual pigments. Biochemical Journal 367, 129–135.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Deeb, S.S., Wakefield, M., Tada, T., Marotte, L., Yokoyama, S., & Graves, J.M. (2003). The cone visual pigments of an Australian marsupial, the tammar wallaby (Macropus eugenii): Sequence, spectral tuning and evolution. Molecular Biology and Evolution 20, 170–187.Google Scholar
Ebrey, T. & Koutalos, Y. (2001). Vertebrate photoreceptors. Progress in Retinal Eye Research 20, 49–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fasick, J.I., Applebury, M.L., & Oprian, D.D. (2002). Spectral tuning in the mammalian short-wavelength sensitive cone pigments. Biochemistry 41, 6860–6865.Google Scholar
Fiedman, H. (1967). Colour vision in the Virginia opossum. Nature 213, 835–836.Google Scholar
Hemmi, J.M. (1999). Dichromatic colour vision in an Australian marsupial, the tammar wallaby. Journal of Comparative Physiology A 185, 509–515.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hemmi, J.M. & Grunert, U. (1999). Distribution of photoreceptor types in the retina of a marsupial, the tammar wallaby (Macropus eugenii). Visual Neuroscience 16, 291–302.Google Scholar
Jacobs, G.H. (1993). The distribution and nature of colour vision among the mammals. Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society 68, 413–471.Google Scholar
Merbs, S.L. & Nathans, J. (1992). Absorption spectra of human cone pigments. Nature 356, 433–435.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Neitz, M., Neitz, J., & Jacobs, G.H. (1991). Spectral tuning of pigments underlying red–green color vision. Science 252, 971–974.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shi, Y., Radlwimmer, F.B., & Yokoyama, S. (2001). Molecular genetics and the evolution of ultraviolet vision in vertebrates. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A. 98, 11731–11736.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Yokoyama, S. (2002). Molecular evolution of color vision in vertebrates. Gene 300, 69–78.Google Scholar
Yokoyama, S. & Radlwimmer, F.B. (1999). The molecular genetics of red and green color vision in mammals. Genetics 153, 919–932.Google Scholar
Yokoyama, S. & Shi, Y. (2000). Genetics and evolution of ultraviolet vision in vertebrates. Federation of European Biochemical Societies Letters 486, 167–172.Google Scholar