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Isomerisation of the Visual Chromophore All-trans to 11-cis Retinal

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Abstract

IT is well known1 that the only action of light in vision is the photoisomerisation of the 11 -cis retinylidene (derived from vitamin A aldehyde) prosthetic or chromophoric group of rhodopsin, from the 11-cis to the all-trans configuration. After several poorly understood intermediate steps rhodopsin is bleached to opsin, retinal being set free in the all-trans form. Two paths are now possible for the all-trans retinal: either isomerisation to the 11-cis configuration and joining with opsin to form rhodopsin (the situation here, however, is not clear and is likely to be rather complex2,3), or reduction to retinol (vitamin A) and, after esterification, storage as the 11-cis ester4.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Theoretical Chemistry Department, University of Oxford,

    BRIAN O'LEARY, BRIAN DUKE & JAMES E. EILERS

  2. Department of Chemistry, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio

    E. W. ABRAHAMSON

Authors
  1. BRIAN O'LEARY
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  2. BRIAN DUKE
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  3. JAMES E. EILERS
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  4. E. W. ABRAHAMSON
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O'LEARY, B., DUKE, B., EILERS, J. et al. Isomerisation of the Visual Chromophore All-trans to 11-cis Retinal. Nature 246, 166–167 (1973). https://doi.org/10.1038/246166a0

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/246166a0

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