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J. Biol. Chem., Vol. 279, Issue 18, 18608-18613, April 30, 2004

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Drosophila NinaB and NinaD Act Outside of Retina to Produce Rhodopsin Chromophore^*

Guie Gu, Jing Yang, Kathleen A. Mitchell, and Joseph E. O'Tousa

From the Department of Biological Sciences, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana 46556

The Drosophila ninaB gene encodes a ,-carotene-15,15'-oxygenase responsible for the centric cleavage of -carotene that produces the retinal chromophore of rhodopsin. The ninaD gene encodes a membrane receptor required for efficient use of -carotene. Despite their importance to the synthesis of visual pigment, we show that these genes are not active in the retina. Mosaic analysis shows that ninaB and ninaD are not required in the retina, and exclusive retinal expression of either gene, or both genes simultaneously, does not support rhodopsin biogenesis. In contrast, neuron-specific expression of ninaB and ninaD allows for rhodopsin biogenesis. Additional directed expression studies failed to identify other tissues supporting ninaB activity in rhodopsin biogenesis. These results show that nonretinal sites of NinaB ,-carotene-15,15'-oxygenase activity, likely neurons of the central nervous system, are essential for production of the visual chromophore. Retinal or another C₂₀ retinoid, not members of the -carotene family of C₄₀ carotenoids, are supplied to photoreceptors for rhodopsin biogenesis.

Received for publication, January 12, 2004 , and in revised form, February 23, 2004.

^* This work was supported by National Institutes of Health Grant EYO6808. The costs of publication of this article were defrayed in part by the payment of page charges. This article must therefore be hereby marked "advertisement" in accordance with 18 U.S.C. Section 1734 solely to indicate this fact.

These two authors contributed equally to this work.

To whom correspondence should be addressed. Tel.: 574-631-6093; Fax: 574-631-7413; E-mail: jotousa{at}nd.edu.

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