Molecular evolution of visual pigments

随着基因组数据库中序列数据的快速积累，需要新的生物信息学方法和有效的实验方法来破译这些丰富的序列数据中包含的信息。分子进化方法提供了从塑造蛋白质进化的历史力量中理解蛋白质功能多样性的视角。这项研究试图通过各种创新的比较方法来了解视觉色素功能的机制，例如祖先蛋白质的实验复活，以及对具有异常视觉适应能力的现代动物的调查。对祖先视觉色素的研究将与对吊袜蛇全视锥视网膜中发现的视觉色素的研究相结合。人们将通过表征吊带蛇感光器中所含的视觉色素来研究吊带蛇不寻常视觉背后的分子机制。我们的创新方法结合了对复活的和现在的视觉色素的研究，有望深入了解视觉色素的功能，这是更传统的方法无法轻易实现的。最终，更好地了解视觉色素的结构和功能不仅对眼科疾病的治疗具有重要意义，而且对于制药行业以及针对G蛋白偶联受体的药物的开发也具有重要意义，视觉色素是其中研究最深入的成员之一。

With the rapidly accumulating sequence data in the genomic databases, new bioinformatic approaches and efficient experimental methods are needed to decipher the information contained in this wealth of sequence data. Molecular evolutionary approaches offer the perspective of understanding the diversity of protein function from the historical forces that shaped its evolution. This research seeks to understand the mechanisms of visual pigment function using a variety of innovative comparative approaches such as the experimental resurrection of ancestral proteins, and investigations of present day animals with unusual visual adaptations. Ancestral visual pigment studies will be combined with studies of the visual pigments found in the all-cone retina of the garter snake. Molecular mechanisms underlying the unusual vision of garter snakes will be investigated by characterizing the visual pigments contained in their photoreceptors. Our innovative approach combining studies of both resurrected and present day visual pigments promises to yield insights into visual pigment function not easily attainable by more conventional methods. Ultimately, better understanding of visual pigment structure and function will have important implications not only for the treatment of eye diseases, but also for the pharmaceutical industry, and the development of drugs which target G protein coupled receptors, of which visual pigments are one of the best studied members.