Significance Optical coherence tomography has established that human cone photoreceptor outer segments elongate in response to stimuli bleaching large fractions of their visual pigment. Elongation responses are completely described over… Click to show full abstract
Significance Optical coherence tomography has established that human cone photoreceptor outer segments elongate in response to stimuli bleaching large fractions of their visual pigment. Elongation responses are completely described over their 200-fold bleaching range as the sum of two exponentially rising components differing 13-fold in time constants and 4-fold in light sensitivity. Bleaching measurements of individual cones with adaptive optics scanning laser ophthalmoscopy (SLO) suggest that component 2 arises from cone opsin and disk membrane swelling triggered by photoactivation. Application of a model of phototransduction suggests that component 1 corresponds to free phosphate generated by regulator of G-protein signaling 9 (RGS9)-catalyzed hydrolysis of guanosine triphosphate (GTP) in the α-subunit of G protein complexed with phosphodiesterase.
               
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