| Abstract: | Rhodopsin resynthesis was studied in vivo in the retina and optic cup of two strains of rats with hereditary dystrophy: Campbell albino rats and Hunter rats with pigmented eyes. Wistar and MSU rats, respectively, were used as the controls. The rate of reduction of rhodopsin after its decolorization in the retina in the affected animals was shown to be much slower than in healthy animals and to decrease as the disease developed. In the period of marked morphological changes, only 50% of the decolorized pigment was reduced during 2 h of dark adaptation (the time for complete regeneration of rhodopsin in healthy rats). In Campbell and Hunter rats the breakdown and resynthesis of rhodopsin take place not only in the retina, but also in the layer of fragments of outer segments of the photoreceptors, located between cells of the pigmented epithelium and the retina.Laboratory of the Biochemical Basis of Research, I. M. Sechenov Institute of Evolutionary Physiology and Biochemistry, Academy of Sciences of the USSR, Leningrad. Laboratory of Cyctochemistry and Molecular Biology, Institute of Human Morphology, Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR, Moscow. (Presented by Academician of the Academy of Medical Sciences of the USSR S. E. Severin.) Translated from Byulleten' Éksperimental'noi Biologii i Meditsiny, Vol. 85, No. 2, pp. 167–170, February, 1978. |
