TY - JOUR T1 - Vision using multiple distinct rod opsins in deep-sea fishes JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/424895 SP - 424895 AU - Zuzana Musilova AU - Fabio Cortesi AU - Michael Matschiner AU - Wayne I. L. Davies AU - Sara M. Stieb AU - Fanny de Busserolles AU - Martin Malmstrøm AU - Ole K. Tørresen AU - Jessica K. Mountford AU - Reinhold Hanel AU - Kjetill S. Jakobsen AU - Karen L. Carleton AU - Sissel Jentoft AU - Justin Marshall AU - Walter Salzburger Y1 - 2018/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/09/23/424895.abstract N2 - Vertebrate vision is accomplished through a set of light-sensitive photopigments, which are located in the photoreceptors of the retina and consist of a visual opsin protein bound to a chromophore. In dim-light, vertebrates generally rely upon a single rod opsin (RH1) for obtaining visual information. By inspecting 101 fish genomes, we found that three deep-sea teleost lineages have independently expanded their RH1 gene repertoires. Amongst these, the silver spinyfin (Diretmus argenteus Johnson 1863) stands out as having the highest number of visual opsins known for animals to date (2 cone and 38 rod opsins). Spinyfins simultaneously express up to 14 RH1s encoding for photopigments with different peak spectral sensitivities (λmax=448-513 nm) that cover the range of the residual daylight, as well as the bioluminescence spectrum present in the deep-sea. Our findings present novel molecular and functional evidence for the recurrent evolution of multiple rod opsin-based vision in vertebrates.SHORT ABSTRACT Contrary to the single rod opsin used by most vertebrates, some fishes use multiple rod opsins for vision in the dimly lit deep-sea. ER -