Premium
The visual pigments of a deep‐sea myctophid fish Myctophum nitidulum Garman; an HPLC and spectroscopic description of a non‐paired rhodopsin–porphyropsin system
Author(s) -
Hasegawa E. I.,
Sawada K.,
Abe K.,
Watanabe K.,
Uchikawa K.,
Okazaki Y.,
Toyama M.,
Douglas R. H.
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of fish biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.672
H-Index - 115
eISSN - 1095-8649
pISSN - 0022-1112
DOI - 10.1111/j.1095-8649.2007.01772.x
Subject(s) - rhodopsin , visual pigments , pigment , chromophore , biology , opsin , absorbance , adaptation (eye) , retina , high performance liquid chromatography , fish <actinopterygii> , zoology , chromatography , chemistry , botany , retinal , photochemistry , fishery , organic chemistry , neuroscience
Unusually for a deep‐sea fish, the retina of the myctophid (lanternfish) Myctophum nitidulum was found to contain two visual pigments, shown by extract spectrophotometry to be maximally sensitive at 468 and 522 nm, respectively, giving this species one of the broadest spectral ranges of all deep‐sea fishes. High performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) indicated that the retina contained both A 1 ‐ and A 2 ‐based chromophores. Surprisingly, the maximum absorbance (λ max ) values of the two visual pigments were too far apart to form a rhodopsin–porphyropsin ‘pigment pair’, suggesting they were based on distinct opsins each linked to a different chromophore. This might be an adaptation to the detection of both long‐wave bioluminescence and residual shorter‐wave surface illumination, and could be related to this animal’s tendency to migrate towards surface waters at night.