Color vision of ancestral organisms of higher primates.
Color vision of ancestral organisms of higher primates.
复制标题
DOI：
10.1093/oxfordjournals.molbev.a025800
复制
发表时间：
1997-06
影响因子：
10.7
通讯作者：
M. Nei;Jianzhi Zhang;S. Yokoyama
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
M. Nei;Jianzhi Zhang;S. Yokoyama
哺乳动物的色觉是由一种叫做视蛋白的感光蛋白控制的。大多数哺乳动物都有双色视觉，但人科动物和旧大陆（OW）猴子享有三色视觉，具有蓝色，绿色和红色敏感的视蛋白基因。大多数新世界（NW）猴子要么是二色或三色，这取决于性别和基因型。高等灵长类动物的三色视觉被认为已经进化到便于在斑驳的树叶中检测黄色和红色的水果，但是从三色视觉到三色视觉的进化变化过程还没有很好的理解。利用简约法和新发展的贝叶斯方法，我们推断了高等灵长类祖先生物视蛋白的氨基酸序列。结果表明，OW和NW猴子的祖先缺乏绿色基因，而绿色基因后来从红色基因进化而来。红/绿色视蛋白基因在哺乳动物漫长的夜间进化阶段幸存下来，而且在生活在黑暗环境中的生物体中受到强烈的净化选择，这一事实表明，除了色觉之外，该基因还有另一个重要功能，可能是控制昼夜节律。
The color vision of mammals is controlled by photosensitive proteins called opsins. Most mammals have dichromatic color vision, but hominoids and Old World (OW) monkeys enjoy trichromatic vision, having the blue-, green-, and red-sensitive opsin genes. Most New World (NW) monkeys are either dichromatic or trichromatic, depending on the sex and genotype. Trichromacy in higher primates is believed to have evolved to facilitate the detection of yellow and red fruits against dappled foliage, but the process of evolutionary change from dichromacy to trichromacy is not well understood. Using the parsimony and the newly developed Bayesian methods, we inferred the amino acid sequences of opsins of ancestral organisms of higher primates. The results suggest that the ancestors of OW and NW monkeys lacked the green gene and that the green gene later evolved from the red gene. The fact that the red/green opsin gene has survived the long nocturnal stage of mammalian evolution and that it is under strong purifying selection in organisms that live in dark environments suggests that this gene has another important function in addition to color vision, probably the control of circadian rhythms.