期刊名称：Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
印刷版ISSN：0027-8424
电子版ISSN：1091-6490
出版年度：2010
卷号：107
期号：1
页码：395-400
DOI：10.1073/pnas.0907178107
语种：English
出版社：The National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
摘要：Bipolar cells are the central neurons of the retina that transmit visual signals from rod and cone photoreceptors to third-order neurons in the inner retina and the brain. A dogma set forth by early anatomical studies is that bipolar cells in mammalian retinas receive segregated rod/cone synaptic inputs (either from rods or from cones), and here, we present evidence that challenges this traditional view. By analyzing light-evoked cation currents from morphologically identified depolarizing bipolar cells (DBCs) in the wild-type and three pathway-specific knockout mice (rod transducin knockout [Tr{alpha}-/-], connexin36 knockout [Cx36-/-], and transcription factor beta4 knockout [Bhlhb4-/-]), we show that a subpopulation of rod DBCs (DBCR2s) receives substantial input directly from cones and a subpopulation of cone DBCs (DBCC1s) receives substantial input directly from rods. These results provide evidence of the existence of functional rod-DBCC and cone-DBCR synaptic pathways in the mouse retina as well as the previously proposed rod hyperpolarizing bipolar-cells pathway. This is grounds for revising the mammalian rod/cone bipolar cell dogma.
关键词：light-evoked cation and chloride currents ; axon–terminal stratification ; connexin36 ; wild-type and mutant mice ; depolarizing bipolar cell
