Minority Research Initiation Planning Grant

在许多动物的眼睛中有一种叫做视网膜色素上皮的组织，它在细胞中含有黑色素，可以分散或聚集色素。 相对分散与黑暗量和昼夜节律周期有关，是视觉光适应过程的一部分。 这项研究计划资助项目是为了获得关于视网膜中的光感受器如何将相对光水平传达给色素上皮的初步数据。 已知一种称为环AMP的化合物在细胞内作为第二信使，响应细胞表面接收的信号改变细胞功能。 这项研究测试了新的假设，环AMP可能直接作为细胞外第二信使以及。 显微镜，细胞分级，和生化分析用于确定色素的本地化和其可能的机制，使用眼睛的鱼作为模型系统。 这项工作对这位少数民族科学家的职业发展很重要，它将对该机构的本科生培训产生影响，其结果对视觉神经科学，昼夜节律生物学和细胞生物学都很重要。

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.