Rhodopsins and Photo-transduction

This text includes a comprehensive treatment of contemporary developments in visual receptor biophysics, drawing together highly interdisciplinary contributions ranging from structural chemistry through to neurophysiology.

---

Rhodopsins are photosensitive proteins that have a retinal (vitamin A aldehyde) as the chromophore. In the past few years, it has been shown that rhodopsin belongs to a large receptor family and that the general mechanism of the signal transduction mediated by this receptor family is widespread. Rhodopsin research has greatly contributed to establishing this universal picture of seven-transmembrane receptor function, and this book brings together the results of interdisciplinary collaborations among the various research fields. This book includes a comprehensive treatment of contemporary developments in visual receptor biophysics, drawing together highly interdisciplinary contributions ranging from structural chemistry through to neurophysiology.