Bioorganic Studies on Rhodopsins

A sum mary of on go ing bioorganic stud ies on rho dop sin, the most in ten sively stud ied G-protein cou pled re cep tor (GPCR) is given. The ar ti cle in cludes: (i) gen eral de scrip tions of rho dop sin and (ii) var i ous nat u rally oc cur ring ret i nal chromo phores in an i mals, fish and mi cro or gan isms; (iii) the ra tio nale for 6-s-cis-11-sicis ret i nal be ing the com mon chromophoric struc ture in vi sual pig ments; (iv) elec tro static charge dis tri bu tion within the op sin bind ing site; (v) the vi sual transduction cy cle; and (vi) the changes oc cur r ing in the chromo phore/re cep tor in ter ac tions allong the vi sual transduction path.