Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Provencio I
PROVIDER: S-EPMC18217 | biostudies-literature | 1998 Jan
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Provencio I I Jiang G G De Grip W J WJ Hayes W P WP Rollag M D MD
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 19980101 1
We have identified an opsin, melanopsin, in photosensitive dermal melanophores of Xenopus laevis. Its deduced amino acid sequence shares greatest homology with cephalopod opsins. The predicted secondary structure of melanopsin indicates the presence of a long cytoplasmic tail with multiple putative phosphorylation sites, suggesting that this opsin's function may be finely regulated. Melanopsin mRNA is expressed in hypothalamic sites thought to contain deep brain photoreceptors and in the iris, a ...[more]