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Teleost multiple tissue (tmt) opsin: a candidate photopigment regulating the peripheral clocks of zebrafish?

2003; Elsevier BV; Volume: 112; Issue: 1-2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1016/s0169-328x(03)00059-7

1872-6941

Paraskevi Moutsaki, David Whitmore, James Bellingham, Katsuhiko Sakamoto, Zoë K. David-Gray, F. Foster,

Spaceflight effects on biology

Isolated organs and cell lines from zebrafish exhibit circadian oscillations in clock gene expression that can be entrained to a 24-h light/dark cycle. The mechanism underlying this cellular photosensitivity is unknown. We report the identification of a novel opsin family, tmt-opsin, that has a genomic structure characteristic of vertebrate photopigments, an amino acid identity equivalent to the known photopigment opsins, and the essential residues required for photopigment function. Significantly, tmt-opsin is expressed in a wide variety of neural and non-neural tissues, including a zebrafish embryonic cell line that exhibits a light entrainable clock. Collectively the data suggest that tmt-opsin is a strong candidate for the photic regulation of zebrafish peripheral clocks.