Genetic characterization of the visual pigments of the red-eared turtle (Trachemys scripta elegans) and computational predictions of the spectral sensitivity

Corredor, Vitor Henrique; Hauzman, Einat; Gonçalves, Arlan da Silva; Ventura, Dora Fix

doi:10.1016/j.jpap.2022.100141

Cited by 3 publications

(3 citation statements)

References 104 publications

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“…As land turtles are slow moving herbivores protected from predators by their stable shells, a good sense of vision seems not mandatory. Nevertheless, tetrachromatic vision still occurs in turtles ( Emerling, 2017 ; Corredor et al, 2022 ) and we have confirmed the tetrachromacy of Chrysemys picta ( Supplementary Table S3 ). A possible explanation may lie in the better ability of tetrachromats to distinguish color hues in fruits, part of the diets of turtles.…”

Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 75%

Evolution of visual guanylyl cyclases and their activating proteins with respect to clade and species-specific visual system adaptation

Gesemann

Neuhauss

2023

Front. Mol. Neurosci.

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Membrane guanylyl cyclase receptors are important regulators of local cGMP production, critically influencing cell growth and differentiation as well as ion transport, blood pressure and calcium feedback of vertebrate phototransduction. Currently, seven different subtypes of membrane guanylyl cyclase receptors have been characterized. These receptors have tissue specific expression and are activated either by small extracellular ligands, changing CO2 concentrations or, in the case of visual guanylyl cyclases, intracellularly interacting Ca2+-dependent activating proteins. In this report, we focus on the visual guanylyl cyclase receptors (GCs) GC-E (gucy2d/e) and GC-F (gucy2f) and their activating proteins (GCAP1/2/3; guca1a/b/c). While gucy2d/e has been detected in all analyzed vertebrates, GC-F receptors are missing in several clades (reptiles, birds, and marsupials) and/or individual species. Interestingly, the absence of GC-F in highly visual sauropsida species with up to 4 different cone-opsins is compensated by an increased number of guanylyl cyclase activating proteins, whereas in nocturnal or visually impaired species with reduced spectral sensitivity it is consolidated by the parallel inactivation of these activators. In mammals, the presence of GC-E and GC-F is accompanied by the expression of one to three GCAPs, whereas in lizards and birds, up to five different GCAPs are regulating the activity of the single GC-E visual membrane receptor. In several nearly blind species, a single GC-E enzyme is often accompanied by a single variant of GCAP, suggesting that one cyclase and one activating protein are both sufficient and required for conferring the basic detection of light.

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Section: Resultssupporting

confidence: 75%

Evolution of visual guanylyl cyclases and their activating proteins with respect to clade and species-specific visual system adaptation

Gesemann

Neuhauss

2023

Front. Mol. Neurosci.

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“…An additional spectral-tuning mechanism in vertebrates involves the other component of visual pigments, the light-sensitive chromophore, which is covalently bound to the visual opsin protein to form a visual pigment. Most vertebrates exclusively use a vitamin A 1 derived chromophore (retinal, A 1 ), but some use a chromophore derived from vitamin A 2 (3,4-didehydroretinal, A 2 ) that red-shifts and broadens the absorption spectra of the visual pigment relative to the A 1 form and lowers the photosensitivity ( Bridges 1972 ; Corredor et al 2022 ). Use of A 2 may be exclusive, shift through ontogeny, be present in a mixture with A 1 , or be spatially distributed across the retina.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Use of A 2 may be exclusive, shift through ontogeny, be present in a mixture with A 1 , or be spatially distributed across the retina. A 2 is most often, but not exclusively, found in species inhabiting freshwater habitats in which the light environment is red shifted ( Bridges 1972 ; Loew et al 2002 ; Carleton et al 2020 ; Corredor et al 2022 ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Diversity and Evolution of Frog Visual Opsins: Spectral Tuning and Adaptation to Distinct Light Environments

Schott,

Fujita,

Streicher

et al. 2024

Molecular Biology and Evolution

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Visual systems adapt to different light environments through several avenues including optical changes to the eye and neurological changes in how light signals are processed and interpreted. Spectral sensitivity can evolve via changes to visual pigments housed in the retinal photoreceptors through gene duplication and loss, differential and coexpression, and sequence evolution. Frogs provide an excellent, yet understudied, system for visual evolution research due to their diversity of ecologies (including biphasic aquatic-terrestrial life cycles) that we hypothesize imposed different selective pressures leading to adaptive evolution of the visual system, notably the opsins that encode the protein component of the visual pigments responsible for the first step in visual perception. Here, we analyze the diversity and evolution of visual opsin genes from 93 new eye transcriptomes plus published data for a combined dataset spanning 122 frog species and 34 families. We find that most species express the four visual opsins previously identified in frogs but show evidence for gene loss in two lineages. Further, we present evidence of positive selection in three opsins and shifts in selective pressures associated with differences in habitat and life history, but not activity pattern. We identify substantial novel variation in the visual opsins and, using microspectrophotometry, find highly variable spectral sensitivities, expanding known ranges for all frog visual pigments. Mutations at spectral-tuning sites only partially account for this variation, suggesting that frogs have used tuning pathways that are unique among vertebrates. These results support the hypothesis of adaptive evolution in photoreceptor physiology across the frog tree of life in response to varying environmental and ecological factors and further our growing understanding of vertebrate visual evolution.

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Special issue "chromophores and opsins: Physiological processes elicited by visible, ultraviolet and infrared light"

Guido

2024

Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology

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Genetic characterization of the visual pigments of the red-eared turtle (Trachemys scripta elegans) and computational predictions of the spectral sensitivity

Cited by 3 publications

References 104 publications

Evolution of visual guanylyl cyclases and their activating proteins with respect to clade and species-specific visual system adaptation

Evolution of visual guanylyl cyclases and their activating proteins with respect to clade and species-specific visual system adaptation

Diversity and Evolution of Frog Visual Opsins: Spectral Tuning and Adaptation to Distinct Light Environments

Special issue "chromophores and opsins: Physiological processes elicited by visible, ultraviolet and infrared light"

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