Fu Yingbin, Yau King-Wai
Department of Neuroscience, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD 21205, USA.
Pflugers Arch. 2007 Aug;454(5):805-19. doi: 10.1007/s00424-006-0194-y. Epub 2007 Jan 17.
Phototransduction is the process by which light triggers an electrical signal in a photoreceptor cell. Image-forming vision in vertebrates is mediated by two types of photoreceptors: the rods and the cones. In this review, we provide a summary of the success in which the mouse has served as a vertebrate model for studying rod phototransduction, with respect to both the activation and termination steps. Cones are still not as well-understood as rods partly because it is difficult to work with mouse cones due to their scarcity and fragility. The situation may change, however.
光转导是光在光感受器细胞中触发电信号的过程。脊椎动物的成像视觉由两种光感受器介导:视杆细胞和视锥细胞。在本综述中,我们总结了小鼠作为研究视杆细胞光转导的脊椎动物模型在激活和终止步骤方面所取得的成功。视锥细胞仍不如视杆细胞那样被充分理解,部分原因是由于小鼠视锥细胞稀少且脆弱,难以进行研究。然而,这种情况可能会改变。