ArticleMolecular biology and evolution2014
An empirical test of convergent evolution in rhodopsins.
Article in Molecular biology and evolution, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 22 papers.
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
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Who cites it
22 citing papers in PubMed, 64 citations in OpenAlex.
- The Origins of GPCRs.International journal of molecular sciences · 2026Review
- Tandem Repeats Provide Evidence for Convergent Evolution to Similar Protein Structures.Genome biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Light Control in Microbial Systems.International journal of molecular sciences · 2024Review
- What is it like to be a choanoflagellate? Sensation, processing and behavior in the closest unicellular relatives of animals.Animal cognition · 2023Review
- Structural screens identify candidate human homologs of insect chemoreceptors and crypticeLife · 2023Article
- Convergent evolution of animal and microbial rhodopsins.RSC advances · 2023Review
- Carotenoid binding in Gloeobacteria rhodopsin provides insights into divergent evolution of xanthorhodopsin types.Communications biology · 2022Article
- Earliest Photic Zone Niches Probed by Ancestral Microbial Rhodopsins.Molecular biology and evolution · 2022Article
- Brighten the Future: Photobiomodulation and Optogenetics.Focus (American Psychiatric Publishing) · 2022Review
- A unified evolutionary origin for the ubiquitous protein transporters SecY and YidC.BMC biology · 2021Article
- Omega Rhodopsins: A Versatile Class of Microbial Rhodopsins.Journal of microbiology and biotechnology · 2020Review
- Pseudo-Symmetric Assembly of Protodomains as a Common Denominator in the Evolution of Polytopic Helical Membrane Proteins.Journal of molecular evolution · 2020Article
- The deep(er) roots of Eukaryotes and Akaryotes.F1000Research · 2020Article
- Article
- Molecular Phylogenetics and the Perennial Problem of Homology.Journal of molecular evolution · 2016Review
- Marine Bacterial and Archaeal Ion-Pumping Rhodopsins: Genetic Diversity, Physiology, and Ecology.Microbiology and molecular biology reviews : MMBR · 2016Review
- Article
- Light and the evolution of vision.Eye (London, England) · 2016Review
- A Large and Phylogenetically Diverse Class of Type 1 Opsins Lacking a Canonical Retinal Binding Site.PloS one · 2016Article
- Molecular bases for the selection of the chromophore of animal rhodopsins.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2015Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
Rhodopsins are photochemically reactive membrane proteins that covalently bind retinal chromophores. Type I rhodopsins are found in both prokaryotes and eukaryotic microbes, whereas type II rhodopsins function as photoactivated G-protein coupled receptors (GPCRs) in animal vision. Both rhodopsin families share the seven transmembrane α-helix GPCR fold and a Schiff base linkage from a conserved lysine to retinal in helix G. Nevertheless, rhodopsins are widely cited as a striking example of evolutionary convergence, largely because the two families lack detectable sequence similarity and differ in many structural and mechanistic details. Convergence entails that the shared rhodopsin fold is so especially suited to photosensitive function that proteins from separate origins were selected for this architecture twice. Here we show, however, that the rhodopsin fold is not required for photosensitive activity. We engineered functional bacteriorhodopsin variants with novel folds, including radical noncircular permutations of the α-helices, circular permutations of an eight-helix construct, and retinal linkages relocated to other helices. These results contradict a key prediction of convergence and thereby provide an experimental attack on one of the most intractable problems in molecular evolution: how to establish structural homology for proteins devoid of discernible sequence similarity.
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Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.