2001) Temporal contrast adaptation in salamander
bipolar cells.
Solitary
bipolar cells were prepared from skate retina according to the published protocol (3), and were approved by the IACUCs of the University of Illinois College of Medicine and the Marine Biological Laboratory, Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
In examining controls and exposed mice at postnatal day 60, the researchers found that late-born rod photoreceptors and rod and cone
bipolar cells increased by 16-30% in exposed offspring, whereas Muller glial cells (also classified as late-born retinal cells) did not increase.
By examining specially stained retinal samples under the microscope, they observed structural changes in
bipolar cells in cattle that had been infected with a TSE.
The researchers needed a simple molecule that could make ganglion and
bipolar cells sensitive to light.
In this proposal I wish to examine whether absence of functional miRNAs have as severe implications for the
bipolar cells as they do for cone photoreceptors.
The secondary cells are called ON
bipolar cells because they respond to brightening light, as when lights are turned on.
The molecular mechanisms by which horizontal cells send lateral inhibitory signals to photoreceptors and
bipolar cells are still under debate, but protons released from horizontal cells have been hypothesized to alter the flow of visual information within the outer retina (2).
These minute power surges must leap across tiny gaps, or synapses, to trigger similar potentials in
bipolar cells and ganglion cells that reside in neighboring retinal layers.
Horizontal cells of the vertebrate retina are interneurons; they form a lateral inhibitory pathway in the visual system mediating interactions between photoreceptors and
bipolar cells at the first stage of signal transduction.
Multipolar nerve cells account for 55%,
bipolar cells for 42% and unipolar cells for 2% of the neurons in Hydra (Tardent and Weber, 1976).
