Minority Research Initiation Planning Grant

在许多动物的眼睛里有一种叫做视网膜色素上皮的组织，它的细胞中含有黑色的色素，可以分散或聚集色素。这种相对分散与黑暗的数量和昼夜节律有关，是光线适应视觉的过程的一部分。这项研究计划拨款项目是为了获得视网膜中的光感受器如何将相对光线水平传递给色素上皮的初步数据。众所周知，一种名为环-AMP的化合物在细胞内作为第二信使，对细胞表面收到的信号做出反应，改变细胞功能。这项研究验证了这一新的假设，即环-AMP也可能直接作为细胞外第二信使。使用显微镜、细胞分离和生化分析来确定色素的定位及其可能的机制，并以鱼的眼睛为模型系统。这项工作将对这位少数民族科学家的职业发展产生重要影响，它将对该机构的本科生培训产生影响，其结果将对视觉神经科学、昼夜节律生物学和细胞生物学具有重要意义。

In the eye of many animals is a tissue called the retinal pigment epithelium, which contains dark pigment in cells that can disperse or aggregate the pigment. The relative dispersal is related to the amount of darkness and to the circadian day-night cycle, and is part of the process of light adaptation for vision. This research planning grant project is to get preliminary data on how the photoreceptors in the retina communicate the relative light levels to the pigment epithelium. A compound known as cyclic-AMP is known to act within cells as a second messenger to alter cellular functions in response to a signal received at the cell surface. This study tests the novel hypothesis that cyclic-AMP may serve directly as an extracellular second messenger as well. Microscopy, cell fractionation, and biochemical analysis are used to determine pigment localization and its possible mechanisms using the eye of a fish as a model system. This work will be important to this minority scientist's career development, it will have an impact on undergraduate training at this institution, and the results will be important for visual neuroscience, for the biology of circadian rhythms, and for cell biology.