| Budget Amount *help |
¥4,160,000 (Direct Cost: ¥3,200,000、Indirect Cost: ¥960,000)
Fiscal Year 2014: ¥2,080,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥480,000)
Fiscal Year 2013: ¥2,080,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,600,000、Indirect Cost: ¥480,000)
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| Outline of Final Research Achievements |
Humans have two kinds of vision: twilight vision mediated by rhodopsin (Rh) and color vision achieved by three color pigments (blue, green and red). A common chromophore molecule, 11-cis retinal, is used to distinguish different colors in vision. While X-ray structure of Rh was determined, structural studies of color pigments lag far behind those of Rh. In 2010, we succeeded in structural analysis of monkey green and red sensitive pigments by use of low-temperature FTIR spectroscopy. In this project, we aimed at achieving the first structural analysis of blue pigment. By optimizing preparation and measuring conditions, we successfully obtained difference FTIR spectra of monkey blue at 77 K, which provided unique structural aspects to see blue lights. We are preparing the original paper, while I gave a keynote lecture in International Congress on Photobiology (Sep. 2014, Cordoba, Argentina).
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