Recruitment of Rod Photoreceptors from Short-Wavelength-Sensitive Cones during the Evolution of Nocturnal Vision in Mammals

Vertebrate ancestors had only cone-like photoreceptors. The duplex retina evolved in jawless vertebrates with the advent of highly photosensitive rod-like photoreceptors. Despite cones being the arbiters of high-resolution color vision, rods emerged as the dominant photoreceptor in mammals during a...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Developmental cell Vol. 37; no. 6; p. 520
Main Authors: Kim, Jung-Woong, Yang, Hyun-Jin, Oel, Adam Phillip, Brooks, Matthew John, Jia, Li, Plachetzki, David Charles, Li, Wei, Allison, William Ted, Swaroop, Anand
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: United States 20.06.2016
Subjects:
Animals
Basic-Leucine Zipper Transcription Factors - metabolism
Biological Evolution
Cell Lineage - genetics
Cell Lineage - radiation effects
Chickens
Chromatin - metabolism
Epigenesis, Genetic - radiation effects
Eye Proteins - metabolism
Gene Expression Regulation, Developmental - radiation effects
Light
Mammals - genetics
Mammals - metabolism
Mice
Night Vision - radiation effects
Opsins - metabolism
Regulatory Sequences, Nucleic Acid - genetics
Retinal Cone Photoreceptor Cells - metabolism
Retinal Cone Photoreceptor Cells - radiation effects
Retinal Rod Photoreceptor Cells - metabolism
Retinal Rod Photoreceptor Cells - radiation effects
Ultraviolet Rays
Zebrafish - embryology
Zebrafish - metabolism
ISSN:1878-1551, 1878-1551
Online Access:Get more information
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Summary:Vertebrate ancestors had only cone-like photoreceptors. The duplex retina evolved in jawless vertebrates with the advent of highly photosensitive rod-like photoreceptors. Despite cones being the arbiters of high-resolution color vision, rods emerged as the dominant photoreceptor in mammals during a nocturnal phase early in their evolution. We investigated the evolutionary and developmental origins of rods in two divergent vertebrate retinas. In mice, we discovered genetic and epigenetic vestiges of short-wavelength cones in developing rods, and cell-lineage tracing validated the genesis of rods from S cones. Curiously, rods did not derive from S cones in zebrafish. Our study illuminates several questions regarding the evolution of duplex retina and supports the hypothesis that, in mammals, the S-cone lineage was recruited via the Maf-family transcription factor NRL to augment rod photoreceptors. We propose that this developmental mechanism allowed the adaptive exploitation of scotopic niches during the nocturnal bottleneck early in mammalian evolution.
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ISSN:1878-1551
1878-1551
DOI:10.1016/j.devcel.2016.05.023