Yokoyama S, Shi Y
Department of Biology, Syracuse University, 130 College Place, Syracuse, NY 13244, USA.
FEBS Lett. 2000 Dec 8;486(2):167-72. doi: 10.1016/s0014-5793(00)02269-9.
Various vertebrates use ultraviolet (UV) vision for such basic behaviors as mating, foraging, and predation. We have successfully interchanged the color-sensitivities of the mouse UV pigment and the human blue pigment by introducing forward and reverse mutations at five sites. This unveils for the first time the general mechanism of UV vision. Most contemporary UV pigments in vertebrates have maintained their ancestral functions by accumulating no more than one of the five specific amino acid changes. The avian lineage is an exception, where the ancestral pigment lost UV-sensitivity but some descendants regained it by one amino acid replacement at an entirely different site.
各种脊椎动物利用紫外线视觉来进行诸如交配、觅食和捕食等基本行为。我们通过在五个位点引入正向和反向突变，成功地互换了小鼠紫外线色素和人类蓝色色素的颜色敏感性。这首次揭示了紫外线视觉的一般机制。脊椎动物中大多数当代紫外线色素通过积累不超过五个特定氨基酸变化中的一个来维持其祖先功能。鸟类谱系是个例外，其祖先色素失去了紫外线敏感性，但一些后代通过在一个完全不同的位点进行一个氨基酸替换又重新获得了它。
