Yusuke Sakai

How eye-less corals see the light Researchers have discovered that reef-building corals use chloride ions, rather than amino acids, to absorb visible light in their light-sensing proteins, called opsins. This unique mechanism allows o...

How eye-less corals see the light | EurekAlert! www.eurekalert.org/news-release...

Coral anthozoan-specific opsins employ a novel chloride counterion for spectral tuning Environmental chloride ions act as essential counterions that enable coral opsins to respond to visible light, and the polar residue Glu292 plays a critical role in chloride binding.

Delighted to share the latest Version of Record of our paper identifying chloride couterion in coral opsins!
doi.org/10.7554/eLif...

FEBS Press The present study determines a key amino acid residue, Lys91, for defining UV sensitivity of human OPN5. Heterologous action spectroscopy of the wild type and K91 mutants of OPN5 in HEK293T cells rev....

Visible light-sensitive versions of human OPN5 published in FEBS letters!
doi.org/10.1002/1873...

Development of visible light-sensitive human OPN5 via single amino acid substitution https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.05.19.654910v1

Characterization of Anthozoan-Specific Opsins from a Reef-Building Coral, Acropora tenuis, as Gq-Coupled Opsins Most animals capture light through opsins, which are light-sensitive G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs). Recent genome analyses of anthozoans, including corals and sea anemones, have identified novel...

A latest study has been published online in Zoological Science. We examine detailed G protein selectivity and second messenger signalling of unique Gq-coupled coral opsins and compare them with a representative Gq-coupled opsin, jumping spider Rh1, and Gq-DREADD, hM3Dq.
doi.org/10.2108/zs24...

New preprint from the lab on #coral larval light responses, including ciliary arrests and body-wide contractions.

Led by Emelie Brodrick, in collaboration with @micromotility.bsky.social

#biology #cilia @ERC_Research
#hfsp https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.02.06.636794v1

Coral anthozoan-specific opsins employ a novel chloride counterion for spectral tuning Animal opsins are G protein coupled receptors that have evolved to sense light by covalently binding a retinal chromophore via a protonated (positively charged) Schiff base. A negatively charged amino...

Our latest preprint about spectroscopic properties of unique #coral #opsins has been uploaded on bioRxiv.
Coral anthozoan-specific opsins employ a novel chloride counterion for spectral tuning|
www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1...