Adaptive evolution of color vision of the Comoran coelacanth (Latimeria chalumnae).

Abstract

The coelacanth, a "living fossil," lives near the coast of the Comoros archipelago in the Indian Ocean. Living at a depth of about 200 m, the Comoran coelacanth receives only a narrow range of light, at about 480 nm. To detect the entire range of "color" at this depth, the coelacanth appears to use only two closely related paralogous RH1 and RH2 visual pigments with the optimum light sensitivities (lambdamax) at 478 nm and 485 nm, respectively. The lambdamax values are shifted about 20 nm toward blue compared with those of the corresponding orthologous pigments. Mutagenesis experiments show that each of these coadapted changes is fully explained by two amino acid replacements.

• Authors: S Yokoyama, H Zhang, F B Radlwimmer, N S Blow
• Journal: Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A) Vol. 96 Issue 11 Pg. 6279-84 (May 25 1999) ISSN: 0027-8424 [Print] United States
• PMID: 10339578 (Publication Type: Journal Article, Research Support, U.S. Gov't, P.H.S.)

Chemical References

• Recombinant Proteins
• Retinal Pigments
• Rod Opsins

Topics

• Adaptation, Physiological
• Amino Acid Sequence
• Animals
• Color Perception
• Evolution, Molecular
• Exons
• Fishes (genetics, physiology)
• Mammals
• Molecular Sequence Data
• Mutagenesis, Site-Directed
• Phylogeny
• Recombinant Proteins (biosynthesis)
• Restriction Mapping
• Retinal Pigments (chemistry, genetics)
• Rod Opsins (biosynthesis, chemistry, genetics)
• Sequence Alignment
• Sequence Homology, Amino Acid
• Vertebrates