Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jun 21, 2026

Methodology for Studying Interactions of Vitamin A Membrane Receptors and Opsin Protein with their Ligands in Generating the Retinylidene Protein
Published on: October 4, 2024
Phospholipid meets all-trans-retinal: the making of RPE bisretinoids
Janet R Sparrow1, Yalin Wu, Chul Y Kim
1Department of Ophthalmology, Columbia University, New York, NY 10032, USA. jrs88@columbia.edu
Abstract:
The lipid phase of the photoreceptor outer segment membrane is essential to the photon capturing and signaling functions of rhodopsin. Rearrangement of phospholipids in the bilayer accompanies the formation of the active intermediates of rhodopsin following photon absorption. Furthermore, evidence for the formation of a condensation product between the photolyzed chromophore all-trans-retinal and phosphatidylethanolamine indicates that phospholipid may also participate in the movement of the retinoid in the membrane. The downside of these interactions is the formation of bisretinoid-phosphatidylethanolamine compounds that accumulate in retinal pigment epithelial cells with age and that are particularly abundant in some retinal disorders. The propensity of these compounds to negatively impact on the cells has been linked to the pathogenesis of some retinal disorders including juvenile onset recessive Stargardt disease and age-related macular degeneration.
More Related Videos
05:03Quantitative Analysis of Dietary Vitamin A Metabolites in Murine Ocular and Non-Ocular Tissues Using High-Performance Liquid Chromatography
Published on: December 27, 2024
06:16LipidUNet-Machine Learning-Based Method of Characterization and Quantification of Lipid Deposits Using iPSC-Derived Retinal Pigment Epithelium
Published on: July 28, 2023
Related Concept Videos
Assembly of the Lipid Bilayer in the ER
A large chunk of any biological membrane is composed of phospholipids. These lipids have a heterogeneous distribution across different subcellular organelles and even between...
Asymmetric Lipid Bilayer
The Retina
Synthesis of Phosphatidylcholine in the ER Membrane
The major components of all eukaryotic cell...
Overview of Fatty Acid Metabolism
Fatty acids are catabolized in a process called beta-oxidation, which takes place in the matrix of the mitochondria and converts their fatty acid chains into two-carbon units of acetyl groups. The acetyl...
Phosphoinositides and PIPs
Different phosphoinositides are synthesized and recruited on the cytosolic face of the plasma membrane. The localization of specific phosphoinositides concentrated in separate membrane...