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Review

Ultrafast Transient Absorption Spectra and Kinetics of Rod and Cone Visual Pigments

by
Arjun Krishnamoorthi
1,
Keyvan Khosh Abady
1,
Dinesh Dhankhar
1,2 and
Peter M. Rentzepis
1,*
1
Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
2
Thermo Fisher Scientific, Hillsboro, OR 97124, USA
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Molecules 2023, 28(15), 5829; https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28155829
Submission received: 5 July 2023 / Revised: 28 July 2023 / Accepted: 31 July 2023 / Published: 2 August 2023
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Protein Folding, towards the Comprehensive Understanding from Various Aspects)
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Abstract

Rods and cones are the photoreceptor cells containing the visual pigment proteins that initiate visual phototransduction following the absorption of a photon. Photon absorption induces the photochemical transformation of a visual pigment, which results in the sequential formation of distinct photo-intermediate species on the femtosecond to millisecond timescales, whereupon a visual electrical signal is generated and transmitted to the brain. Time-resolved spectroscopic studies of the rod and cone photo-intermediaries enable the detailed understanding of initial events in vision, namely the key differences that underlie the functionally distinct scotopic (rod) and photopic (cone) visual systems. In this paper, we review our recent ultrafast (picoseconds to milliseconds) transient absorption studies of rod and cone visual pigments with a detailed comparison of the transient molecular spectra and kinetics of their respective photo-intermediaries. Key results include the characterization of the porphyropsin (carp fish rhodopsin) and human green-cone opsin photobleaching sequences, which show significant spectral and kinetic differences when compared against that of bovine rhodopsin. These results altogether reveal a rather strong interplay between the visual pigment structure and its corresponding photobleaching sequence, and relevant outstanding questions that will be further investigated through a forthcoming study of the human blue-cone visual pigment are discussed.
Keywords: photoreceptors; phototransduction; photo-intermediates; opsins; transient absorption photoreceptors; phototransduction; photo-intermediates; opsins; transient absorption
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MDPI and ACS Style

Krishnamoorthi, A.; Khosh Abady, K.; Dhankhar, D.; Rentzepis, P.M. Ultrafast Transient Absorption Spectra and Kinetics of Rod and Cone Visual Pigments. Molecules 2023, 28, 5829. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28155829

AMA Style

Krishnamoorthi A, Khosh Abady K, Dhankhar D, Rentzepis PM. Ultrafast Transient Absorption Spectra and Kinetics of Rod and Cone Visual Pigments. Molecules. 2023; 28(15):5829. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28155829

Chicago/Turabian Style

Krishnamoorthi, Arjun, Keyvan Khosh Abady, Dinesh Dhankhar, and Peter M. Rentzepis. 2023. "Ultrafast Transient Absorption Spectra and Kinetics of Rod and Cone Visual Pigments" Molecules 28, no. 15: 5829. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28155829

APA Style

Krishnamoorthi, A., Khosh Abady, K., Dhankhar, D., & Rentzepis, P. M. (2023). Ultrafast Transient Absorption Spectra and Kinetics of Rod and Cone Visual Pigments. Molecules, 28(15), 5829. https://doi.org/10.3390/molecules28155829

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