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Updated: Jul 23, 2025

Large-Scale Purification of Porcine or Bovine Photoreceptor Outer Segments for Phagocytosis Assays on Retinal Pigment Epithelial Cells
Published on: December 12, 2014
Absence of PRCD Leads to Dysregulation in Lipid Homeostasis Resulting in Disorganization of Photoreceptor Outer
Sree I Motipally1, Saravanan Kolandaivelu2
1Departments of Neuroscience and Biochemistry, Robert C. Byrd Health Sciences Centre, WVU Eye Institute, Morgantown, WV, USA.
Abstract:
The outer segments of photoreceptors are specialized sensory cilia crucial for light detection. Any disruption that alters outer segment morphology can impair photoreceptor function and therefore vision. Progressive rod-cone degeneration (PRCD) is an integral membrane protein exclusively present in the photoreceptor OS with an unknown function. Multiple mutations in PRCD are linked with retinitis pigmentosa. The most common PRCD mutation observed in both human and multiple dog breeds, PRCD-C2Y, lacks the lipid modification "palmitoylation," which is crucial for protein stability and trafficking to the OS. Previous studies including ours show impaired disc morphogenesis and rhodopsin distributions in the absence of PRCD, but the precise role of PRCD in maintaining OS structure and function remains unclear. In this chapter, we discuss the potential role of PRCD in the maintenance of photoreceptor OS structural and functional integrity.
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