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Transduction in photoreceptors with bistable pigments: Intermediate processes

Biophysics of structure and mechanism volume 5, pages 163–174 (1979)Cite this article

Abstract

The prolonged depolarizing after potential (PDA) in the R1–6 receptors of the fly was used to isolate intermediate processes in phototransduction which are not manifested directly in the voltage response. It is first demonstrated that a pigment shift by light from metarhodopsin to rhodopsin in four species of the flies: Drosophila, Calliphora, Chrysomya and Musca induces an independent antagonistic process to the PDA, which is manifested in a strong inhibitory effect on PDA induction and is called the anti-PDA.

By using mutants of Drosophila the existence of processes underlying the PDA were examined. The norpA H52and the trp mutant were used in which the voltage response of the photoreceptors could be reversibly abolished by elavated temperature and long intense light respectively. It is shown that the excitatory process underlying the PDA could be induced and depressed in conditions that block the voltage response of the photoreceptors, thus indicating the existance of intermediate processes which link the pigment activation by light to the PDA voltage response.

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Affiliations

  1. Department of Physiology, Hebrew University Hadassah, Medical School, Jerusalem, Israel

    Baruch Minke

  2. Max-Planck-Institut für biologische Kybernetik, D-7400, Tübingen, Federal Republic of Germany

    Baruch Minke

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  1. Baruch Minke
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Additional information

Based on material presented at the European Neurosciences Meeting, Florence, September 1978

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Minke, B. Transduction in photoreceptors with bistable pigments: Intermediate processes. Biophys. Struct. Mechanism 5, 163–174 (1979). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00535445

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00535445

Key words

  • PDA
  • anti-PDA
  • Drosophila mutants
  • Phototransduction