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Energy Shortfall Causes Blindness
Some mitochondrial disorders cause blindness through increased oxidative stress. A new study by Manish Jaiswal, Hugo Bellen and co-authors shows that in other such disorders, light-activated photoreceptors degenerate because the shortfall in mitochondrial energy production impairs rhodopsin trafficking and induces toxicity. This image shows photoreceptor neurons of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, with the photoreceptors visualized by phalloidin (green). The light-sensitive protein rhodopsin 1 (yellow) is aberrantly localized in the cytoplasm of those photoreceptors that have defective mitochondria (non-blue), while the normal photoreceptors are marked by RFP (blue). Jaiswal et al.
Image Credit: Manish Jaiswal
Citation: (2015) PLoS Biology Issue Image | Vol. 13(7) July 2015. PLoS Biol 13(7): ev13.i07. https://doi.org/10.1371/image.pbio.v13.i07
Published: July 31, 2015
Copyright: © 2015 Jaiswal. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Some mitochondrial disorders cause blindness through increased oxidative stress. A new study by Manish Jaiswal, Hugo Bellen and co-authors shows that in other such disorders, light-activated photoreceptors degenerate because the shortfall in mitochondrial energy production impairs rhodopsin trafficking and induces toxicity. This image shows photoreceptor neurons of the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, with the photoreceptors visualized by phalloidin (green). The light-sensitive protein rhodopsin 1 (yellow) is aberrantly localized in the cytoplasm of those photoreceptors that have defective mitochondria (non-blue), while the normal photoreceptors are marked by RFP (blue). Jaiswal et al.
Image Credit: Manish Jaiswal