ArticleJournal of the Royal Society, Interface2015
A complex carotenoid palette tunes avian colour vision.
Article in Journal of the Royal Society, Interface, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 23 papers.
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Who cites it
23 citing papers in PubMed.
- Feed color modifies hypothalamic appetite gene regulation and gut function in broiler chickens.Poultry science · 2026Article
- Accessible and robust machine learning approaches to improve the opsin genotype-phenotype map.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Multiple Pathways to Red Carotenoid Coloration: House Finches (Haemorhous mexicanus) Do Not Use CYP2J19 to Produce Red Plumage.Molecular ecology · 2025Article
- Discovering genotype-phenotype relationships with machine learning and the Visual Physiology Opsin Database (VPOD).GigaScience · 2024Article
- From water to land: Evolution of photoreceptor circuits for vision in air.PLoS biology · 2024Article
- Astaxanthin: Past, Present, and Future.Marine drugs · 2023Review
- A mechanism for red coloration in vertebrates.Current biology : CB · 2022Article
- Magnetoreceptory Function of European Robin Retina: Electrophysiological and Morphological Non-Homogeneity.Cells · 2022Article
- Carotenoid modifying enzymes in metazoans.Methods in enzymology · 2022Article
- Factors Differentiating the Antioxidant Activity of Macular Xanthophylls in the Human Eye Retina.Antioxidants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2021Review
- Convergent evolution of cytochrome P450s underlies independent origins of keto-carotenoid pigmentation in animals.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2019Article
- Body coloration and mechanisms of colour production in Archelosauria: the case of deirocheline turtles.Royal Society open science · 2019Article
- Carotenoid composition and conformation in retinal oil droplets of the domestic chicken.PloS one · 2019Article
- Evolution of CYP2J19, a gene involved in colour vision and red coloration in birds: positive selection in the face of conservation and pleiotropy.BMC evolutionary biology · 2018Article
- Retinal perception and ecological significance of color vision in insects.Current opinion in insect science · 2017Review
- Coevolution of coloration and colour vision?Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2017Article
- Optical influence of oil droplets on cone photoreceptor sensitivity.The Journal of experimental biology · 2017Article
- High-density lipoprotein receptor SCARB1 is required for carotenoid coloration in birds.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2017Article
- Simple and complex retinal dystrophies are associated with profoundly different disease networks.Scientific reports · 2017Article
- Evolution, Development and Function of Vertebrate Cone Oil Droplets.Frontiers in neural circuits · 2017Review
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Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
The brilliantly coloured cone oil droplets of the avian retina function as long-pass cut-off filters that tune the spectral sensitivity of the photoreceptors and are hypothesized to enhance colour discrimination and improve colour constancy. Although it has long been known that these droplets are pigmented with carotenoids, their precise composition has remained uncertain owing to the technical challenges of measuring these very small, dense and highly refractile optical organelles. In this study, we integrated results from high-performance liquid chromatography, hyperspectral microscopy and microspectrophotometry to obtain a comprehensive understanding of oil droplet carotenoid pigmentation in the chicken (Gallus gallus). We find that each of the four carotenoid-containing droplet types consists of a complex mixture of carotenoids, with a single predominant carotenoid determining the wavelength of the spectral filtering cut-off. Consistent with previous reports, we find that the predominant carotenoid type in the oil droplets of long-wavelength-sensitive, medium-wavelength-sensitive and short-wavelength-sensitive type 2 cones are astaxanthin, zeaxanthin and galloxanthin, respectively. In addition, the oil droplet of the principal member of the double cone contains a mixture of galloxanthin and two hydroxycarotenoids (lutein and zeaxanthin). Short-wavelength-absorbing apocarotenoids are present in all of the droplet types, providing filtering of light in a region of the spectrum where filtering by hydroxy- and ketocarotenoids may be incomplete. Thus, birds rely on a complex palette of carotenoid pigments within their cone oil droplets to achieve finely tuned spectral filtering.
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