Ayana M Hellevik, Philip Mardoum, Joshua Hahn, Yvonne Kölsch, Florence D D'Orazi, Sachihiro C Suzuki, Leanne Godinho, Owen Lawrence, Fred Rieke, Karthik Shekhar, Joshua R Sanes, Herwig Baier, Tom Baden, Rachel O Wong, Takeshi Yoshimatsu
Vertebrates rely on rod photoreceptors for vision in low-light conditions. The specialized downstream circuit for rod signalling, called the primary rod pathway, is well characterized in mammals, but circuitry for rod signalling in non-mammals is largely unknown. Here we demonstrate that the mammalian primary rod pathway is conserved in zebrafish, which diverged from extant mammals ~400 million years ago. Using single-cell RNA sequencing, we identified two bipolar cell types in zebrafish that are related to mammalian rod bipolar cell (RBCs), the only bipolar type that directly carries rod signals from the outer to the inner retina in the primary rod pathway...
April 16, 2024: Nature Ecology & Evolution