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Mechanisms of long‐term dark adaptation
Author(s) -
STABELL ULF,
STABELL BJØRN,
FUGELLI ANDERS
Publication year - 1992
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9450.1992.tb00808.x
Subject(s) - allosteric regulation , photopigment , adaptation (eye) , effector , chemistry , biophysics , regulator , microbiology and biotechnology , biology , neuroscience , biochemistry , gene , receptor , retinal
It has previously been suggested that long‐term dark adaptation is controlled by bleaching signals that regulate the activity of an allosteric, positively cooperative protein (Stabell et al ., 1986 a, b ). Recent biochemical evidence strongly supports this assumption, indicating that the primary regulator of the light‐sensitive channels in the plasma membrane of the outer segments of the photoreceptors is a homo‐oligomeric, allosteric, positively cooperative protein. In this report, we discuss the possibility that signals from bleached photopigments may control the dark‐adaptation process through the allosteric protein of the plasma membrane. It is suggested that the concentrations of the bleached photopigment and of the allosteric effector are reciprocal quantities.