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Atomic-force microscopy

Rhodopsin dimers in native disc membranes

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Neat rows of paired photon receptors are caught on camera in their natural state.

Abstract

In vertebrate retinal photoreceptors, the rod outer-segment disc membranes contain densely packed rhodopsin molecules for optimal light absorption and subsequent amplification by the visual signalling cascade1, but how these photon receptors are organized with respect to each other is not known. Here we use infrared-laser atomic-force microscopy to reveal the native arrangement of rhodopsin, which forms paracrystalline arrays of dimers in mouse disc membranes. The visualization of these closely packed rhodopsin dimers in native membranes gives experimental support to earlier inferences about their supramolecular structure2,3 and provides insight into how light signalling is controlled.

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Figure 1: Deflection image of a native eye-disc membrane adsorbed on mica, visualized by atomic-force microscopy (Nanoscope Multimode, Digital Instruments).
Figure 2: Organization and topography of the cytoplasmic surface of rhodopsin.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Institute for Microscopy, Biozentrum, University of Basel, Basel, 4056, Switzerland

    Dimitrios Fotiadis & Andreas Engel

  2. Department of Ophthalmology, University of Washington, Seattle, 98195, Washington, USA

    Yan Liang, David A. Saperstein & Krzysztof Palczewski

  3. Department of Pharmacology, University of Washington, Seattle, 98195, Washington, USA

    Krzysztof Palczewski

  4. Department of Chemistry, University of Washington, Seattle, 98195, Washington, USA

    Krzysztof Palczewski

  5. Department of Chemistry, International Institute of Molecular and Cell Biology, University of Warsaw, Warsaw, 02-109, Poland

    Slawomir Filipek

Authors
  1. Dimitrios Fotiadis
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  2. Yan Liang
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  3. Slawomir Filipek
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  4. David A. Saperstein
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  5. Andreas Engel
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  6. Krzysztof Palczewski
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Krzysztof Palczewski.

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The authors declare no competing financial interests.

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Fotiadis, D., Liang, Y., Filipek, S. et al. Rhodopsin dimers in native disc membranes. Nature 421, 127–128 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/421127a

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