Research Suggests Revision to Common View on How Retinal Cells in Mammals Process Light

Because of a lapse in government funding, the information on this website may not be up to date, transactions submitted via the website may not be processed, and the agency may not be able to respond to inquiries until appropriations are enacted.
The NIH Clinical Center (the research hospital of NIH) is open. For more details about its operating status, please visit cc.nih.gov.
Updates regarding government operating status and resumption of normal operations can be found at OPM.gov.

May 16, 2019

Neuroscience Retina

Basic Research

Grantee

Johns Hopkins Medicine scientists say that new experiments with mouse eye tissues strongly suggest that a longstanding “textbook concept” about the way a mammal’s retina processes light needs a rewrite.

The enduring concept took root more than 30 years ago when researchers doing experiments in frog retinas found that when a single particle of light, known as a photon, is absorbed by light-sensing cells called rods, it starts a cascade of biochemical reactions that involve around 500 molecules called G proteins.

Now, Johns Hopkins vision scientists say that their experiments show that the number of G protein molecules activated in the cascade of reactions is far fewer — involving only 10–20 of them in the rods of mice.