Abstract
The visual pigment of blowfly peripheral photoreceptors displays a marked red fluorescence when the pigment is in the metarhodopsin state as demonstrated in vivo by simultaneous measurements of transmission and fluorescence. The rhodopsin state is non-fluorescent.
It is argued that fluorescence offers a unique means to study visual pigment properties in completely intact living animals and, furthermore, provides the opportunity for studying the photoreceptor optics of visual waveguides. As an example the action of the pupil mechanism of blowfly visual sense cells on the fluorescence signal is demonstrated.
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Stavenga, D.G. Fluorescence of blowfly metarhodopsin. Biophys. Struct. Mechanism 9, 309–317 (1983). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00535666
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00535666