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Marsupials are largely confined to Australasia and to Central and South America. The visual pigments that underlie the photosensitivity of the retina have been examined in a number of species from the former group where evidence for trichromatic colour vision has been found, but none from the latter. In this paper, we report the cone opsin sequences from two nocturnal South American marsupial species,...
The molecular basis for the spectral tuning of longwave-sensitive (LWS) visual pigments in mammals have been described in a wide range of placental species, including the primates. However, little is known about the molecular mechanisms in marsupial LWS pigments. Here, we have studied and compared the LWS opsins in four Australian marsupials: two diprotodonts and two polyprotodonts. Phylogenetic analysis...
Phototransduction in Drosophila is a phosphoinositide-mediated signalling pathway. Phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PIP 2 ) plays a central role in this process, and its levels are tightly regulated. A photoreceptor-specific form of the enzyme CDP-diacylglycerol synthase (CDS), which catalyzes the formation of CDP-diacylglycerol from phosphatidic acid, is a key regulator of the amount...
Rod visual pigment genes have been studied in a wide range of vertebrates including a number of mammalian species. However, no marsupials have yet been examined. To correct this omission, we have studied the rod pigments in two marsupial species, the nocturnal and frugivorous bare-tailed woolly opossum, Caluromys philander, from Central and South America, and the arhythmic and insectivorous fat-tailed...
The genes for the rod and rod-like green cone opsins in two avian species, the budgerigar, Melopsittacus undulatus, and the mallard duck, Anas platyrhynchus, are identified on the basis of amino acid identity with the equivalent chicken sequences and their placement into a single phylogenetic clade with the rod and rod-like green cone opsin genes from other vertebrate species. Since the two bird...
A study of the sequences of the rhodopsin-encoding genes (Rh) in eight fish species from two of the major subdivisions of the teleosts reveals that no introns are present in the coding region. This contrasts with the opsin-encoding genes of all other vertebrates where either four or five introns are invariably found. Phylogenetic analysis shows that this intronless teleost Rh is homologous to the...
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