PURPOSE Increasing evidence implicates macular pigment in protecting the retina and retinal pigment epithelium from light-initiated oxidative damage. Little information, however, is available regarding "average" levels of macular pigment in the general population. This study was designed to assess macular pigment in a high-light environment and to determine what personal characteristics influen...

The retinal pigment epithelium located between the neurosensory retina and the choroidal vasculature is critical for the function and maintenance of both the photoreceptors and underlying capillary endothelium. While the trophic role of retinal pigment epithelium on choroidal endothelial cells is well recognized, the existence of a reciprocal regulatory function of endothelial cells on retinal ...

among the ways of pigment production, microbial synthesis has gained more interest for high growth rate, easy extraction and high yield. pigments are used in the food industry as natural colorants and preservatives; they also have pharmaceutical applications. in this study, fungus monascus purpureus ptcc 5303 was used to produce red, orange and yellow pigments. at first, significant variables w...

The many thousands of Aboriginal rock art sites extending across Australia represent an important cultural record. The styles and materials used to produce such art are of great interest to archaeologists and those concerned with the protection of these significant works. Through an analysis of the mineral pigments utilised in Australian rock art, insight into the age of paintings and practices...

A visual pigment is composed of retinal bound to its apoprotein by a protonated Schiff base linkage. Light isomerizes the chromophore and eventually causes the deprotonation of this Schiff base linkage at the meta II stage of the bleaching cycle. The meta II intermediate of the visual pigment is the active form of the pigment that binds to and activates the G protein transducin, starting the vi...

Many workers have observed that in obstructive jaundice and hepatitis hyperbilirubinaemia is due mainly to a rise in those pigments which give a " direct " reaction in the van den Bergh test. Cole, Lathe, and Billing (1954) have shown that there are two water-soluble pigments which give this reaction. They appear to be chemically related to bilirubin, but their exact structure is still unknown ...

By comparing the published DNA sequences for (a) the genes encoding the human visual color pigments (red, green, and blue) with (b) the genes encoding human, bovine, and Drosophila rhodopsins, a phylogenetic tree for the mammalian pigment genes has been constructed. This evolutionary tree shows that the common ancestor of the visual color pigment genes diverged first from that of the rhodopsin ...

Pigment epithelium-derived factor, a potent angiogenesis inhibitor in the eye, is also expressed in the prostate. Prostate size and angiogenesis is increased in pigment epithelium-derived factor knockout mice, and pigment epithelium-derived factor is down-regulated in some prostate cancers. To investigate whether pigment epithelium-derived factor expression correlates with tumor progression, we...

Microtubule (MT)-based organelle transport is driven by MT motor proteins that move cargoes toward MT minus-ends clustered in the cell center (dyneins) or plus-ends extended to the periphery (kinesins). Cells are able to rapidly switch the direction of transport in response to external cues, but the signaling events that control switching remain poorly understood. Here, we examined the signalin...

We appreciate the interest of Pang and Freund in our recently published manuscript, ‘‘Acute Retinal Pigment Epitheliitis: Spectral-Domain Optical Coherence Tomography Finding in 18 Cases.’’ Because of similarities in the clinical features of acute retinal pigment epitheliitis and pachychoroid pigment epitheliopathy, they have questioned that ‘‘pachychoroid (pachy-[prefix]:thick) pigment epithli...