The Vertebrate Retina

The vertebrate retina contains two classes of light-sensitive receptor cells called rods and cones. The rod is an elongated cylindrical cell containing several hundred thylakoids which support the visual pigment. The pigment system in the rod is confined to internal membranes situated close to the outer membrane of the cell. In the other type of visual receptor, the cone, the pigment is situated in the external membrane itself. In the cone the external... 

RGS9-1 is required for normal inactivation of mouse cone phototransduction. Mol. Vis. 7 71—78. McBee, J.K., Palczewski, K., Baehr, W., and Pepperberg, D.R. (2001). Confronting complexity the interlink of phototransduction and retinoid metabolism in the vertebrate retina. Prog. Retin. Eye Res. 20 469-529. 

Mandell JW, Townes-Anderson E, Czernik AJ et al (1990a) Synapsins in the vertebrate retina absence from ribbon synapses and heterogeneous distribution among conventional synapses. Neuron 5 19-33... 

P D E6 is by far the dominant P D E occurring in rod and cone cells of the vertebrate retina. It plays a key role in visual signal transduction, which is unique among the... 

Thoreson WB, Witkovsky P (1999) Glutamate receptors and circuits in the vertebrate retina. Prog Retin Eye Res 18 765-810. 

The relative distribution of cells in the retina is a reflection of relationships among various neurons. The density of cells in the vertebrate retina varies with the retinal eccentricity. Most prominently, this variation is caused by the development of specialized regions such as area centralis (or fovea in primates). Much of the general-purpose retina (serving the purposes of low visual acuity and motion detection), typically in the mid-periphery, shows that the packing densities of the cells are related to each other. Their ratios can be correlated with the number of cell divisions that the progenitor cells would have to go through to achieve the observed cell number. 

Peng Y-W, Blackstone CD, Huganir RL, Yau K-W (1995) Distribution of glutamate receptor subtypes in the vertebrate retina. Neuroscience 66 483-497. 

Glutamate s role as a neurotransmitter in the vertebrate retina is reviewed by Barnstable (1993), Brandstatter et al. (1998) and Lo et al. (1998). As the cell bodies of different retinal cell types are in different laminae (Fig. 10), we can assign which general cell types express which glutamate receptor subunits. However, there are different subsets of the same cell class, e.g., there are at least 10 different types of on- and off-bipolars, and multiple subtypes of the other cell classes (Stevens, 1998). Without cell-type markers and double-labelling studies, ISH can not differentiate these. The cones and rods release glutamate onto the bipolar cells only off-bipolars use ionotropic receptors at this synapse on-bipolars use the metabotropic receptor mGluR6 instead. The distribution of NMDA and non-NMDA receptor mRNAs in the retina is summarized in Fig. 10. 

Fliesler SJ, Anderson RE. Chemisty and metabolism of lipids in the vertebrate retina. Prog Lipid Res 1983 22 79-131. 

Cone RA. Early receptor potential of the vertebrate retina. Nature 1964 201 626-628. 

Dowhng, JE (1979) Information processing by local circuits The vertebrate retina a model system. In F.O. Schmitt and F.G. Worden (eds) The Neurosciences Fourth Study Program. Cambridge, MA MIT Press. 

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