Ontology highlight
ABSTRACT:
SUBMITTER: Enright JM
PROVIDER: S-EPMC4910640 | biostudies-literature | 2015 Dec
REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature
Current biology : CB 20151105 23
Some vertebrate species have evolved means of extending their visual sensitivity beyond the range of human vision. One mechanism of enhancing sensitivity to long-wavelength light is to replace the 11-cis retinal chromophore in photopigments with 11-cis 3,4-didehydroretinal. Despite over a century of research on this topic, the enzymatic basis of this perceptual switch remains unknown. Here, we show that a cytochrome P450 family member, Cyp27c1, mediates this switch by converting vitamin A1 (the ...[more]