ArticleProceedings. Biological sciences2017
Epistatic interactions influence terrestrial-marine functional shifts in cetacean rhodopsin.
Article in Proceedings. Biological sciences, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 20 papers.
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20 citing papers in PubMed, 38 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pressure-tolerant Evolution in Rhodopsin of Deep-diving Whales.Genome biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Comparative phenotypic analysis of rhodopsin supports stepwise evolution of dim-light vision in early vertebrates.Molecular biology and evolution · 2026Article
- Rhodopsin molecular evolution from mouse to human phenylalanine 88 to leucine substitution enhances thermal stability and post-activation decay.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- A key amino acid site associated with rhodopsin mammal evolution to diurnal vision.Scientific reports · 2025Article
- Genomic and phenotypic evidence support visual and olfactory shifts in primate evolution.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Widespread and Convergent Evolution of Cone Monochromacy in Galeomorph Sharks.Molecular biology and evolution · 2025Article
- Parallel Spectral Tuning of a Cone Visual Pigment Provides Evidence for Ancient Deep-Sea Adaptations in Cetaceans.Genome biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Diversity and Evolution of Frog Visual Opsins: Spectral Tuning and Adaptation to Distinct Light Environments.Molecular biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Adaptive Evolution of Nearctic Deepwater Fish Vision: Implications for Assessing Functional Variation for Conservation.Molecular biology and evolution · 2024Article
- Convergent evolutionary shifts in rhodopsin retinal release explain shared opsin repertoires in monotremes and crocodilians.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2023Article
- Diversified Mammalian Visuasl Adaptations to Bright- or Dim-Light Environments.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
- Adaptation of Antarctic Icefish Vision to Extreme Environments.Molecular biology and evolution · 2023Article
- The evolutionary history and spectral tuning of vertebrate visual opsins.Developmental biology · 2023Review
- Ancient whale rhodopsin reconstructs dim-light vision over a major evolutionary transition: Implications for ancestral diving behavior.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2022Article
- Evolutionary analyses of visual opsin genes in frogs and toads: Diversity, duplication, and positive selection.Ecology and evolution · 2022Article
- Convergent Phenotypic Evolution of Rhodopsin for Dim-Light Sensing across Deep-Diving Vertebrates.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Recreated Ancestral Opsin Associated with Marine to Freshwater Croaker Invasion Reveals Kinetic and Spectral Adaptation.Molecular biology and evolution · 2021Article
- Article
- Evolution of nonspectral rhodopsin function at high altitudes.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2017Article
- Epistatic interactions influence terrestrial-marine functional shifts in cetacean rhodopsin.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2017Article
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Authors and funding
2 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Like many aquatic vertebrates, whales have blue-shifting spectral tuning substitutions in the dim-light visual pigment, rhodopsin, that are thought to increase photosensitivity in underwater environments. We have discovered that known spectral tuning substitutions also have surprising epistatic effects on another function of rhodopsin, the kinetic rates associated with light-activated intermediates. By using absorbance spectroscopy and fluorescence-based retinal release assays on heterologously expressed rhodopsin, we assessed both spectral and kinetic differences between cetaceans (killer whale) and terrestrial outgroups (hippo, bovine). Mutation experiments revealed that killer whale rhodopsin is unusually resilient to pleiotropic effects on retinal release from key blue-shifting substitutions (D83N and A292S), largely due to a surprisingly specific epistatic interaction between D83N and the background residue, S299. Ancestral sequence reconstruction indicated that S299 is an ancestral residue that predates the evolution of blue-shifting substitutions at the origins of Cetacea. Based on these results, we hypothesize that intramolecular epistasis helped to conserve rhodopsin's kinetic properties while enabling blue-shifting spectral tuning substitutions as cetaceans adapted to aquatic environments. Trade-offs between different aspects of molecular function are rarely considered in protein evolution, but in cetacean and other vertebrate rhodopsins, may underlie multiple evolutionary scenarios for the selection of specific amino acid substitutions.
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