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Ciliary Photoreceptors with a Vertebrate-Type Opsin in an Invertebrate Brain
Detlev Arendt,1*Kristin Tessmar-Raible,2*Heidi Snyman,1Adriaan W. Dorresteijn,3Joachim Wittbrodt1
For vision, insect and vertebrate eyes use rhabdomeric and ciliaryphotoreceptor cells, respectively. These cells show distinctarchitecture and transduce the light signal by different phototransductorycascades. In the marine rag-worm Platynereis, we find both celltypes: rhabdomeric photoreceptor cells in the eyes and ciliaryphotoreceptor cells in the brain. The latter use a photopigmentclosely related to vertebrate rod and cone opsins. Comparativeanalysis indicates that both types of photoreceptors, with distinctopsins, coexisted in Urbilateria, the last common ancestor ofinsects and vertebrates, and sheds new light on vertebrate eyeevolution.
1 Developmental Biology Department, European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Meyerhofstrasse 1, 69012 Heidelberg, Germany. 2 Philipps-Universität Marburg, Institut für Spezielle Zoologie, Karl-von-Frisch-Strasse 8, 35032 Marburg, Germany. 3 Justus-Liebig-Universität Giessen, Institut für Allgemeine und Spezielle Zoologie, Stephanstrasse 24, 35390 Giessen, Germany.
* These authors contributed equally to this work.
Present address: European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Meyerhofstrasse1, 69012 Heidelberg, Germany.
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: detlev.arendt{at}embl.de (D.A.), jochen.wittbrodt{at}embl.de (J.W.)
Parietal-eye phototransduction components and their potential evolutionary implications..
C.-Y. Su, D.-G. Luo, A. Terakita, Y. Shichida, H.-W. Liao, M. A. Kazmi, T. P. Sakmar, and K.-W. Yau (2006)
Science
311, 1617-1621
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From the Cover: Targeting of GFP to newborn rods by Nrl promoter and temporal expression profiling of flow-sorted photoreceptors.
M. Akimoto, H. Cheng, D. Zhu, J. A. Brzezinski, R. Khanna, E. Filippova, E. C. T. Oh, Y. Jing, J.-L. Linares, M. Brooks, et al. (2006)
PNAS
103, 3890-3895
|Abstract »|Full Text »|PDF »
Anti-Tubulin Labeling Reveals Ampullary Neuron Ciliary Bundles in Opisthobranch Larvae and a New Putative Neural Structure Associated With the Apical Ganglion.
Present address: European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Meyerhofstrasse 1, 69012 Heidelberg, Germany. 
To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: 
