[CAT] "Secret To Night Vision Found In DNA's Unconventional 'Architecture'"

[rfmcdonald]

More proof, if any was needed, that cats are highly evolved and awesome comes from Science Daily's report that the structure of DNA itself, not its coding, is responsible for the night vision of cats. Oh, and other nocturnal mammals, too.

Researchers have discovered an important element for making night vision possible in nocturnal mammals: the DNA within the photoreceptor rod cells responsible for low light vision is packaged in a very unconventional way, according to a report in the April 17th issue of Cell. That special DNA architecture turns the rod cell nuclei themselves into tiny light-collecting lenses, with millions of them in every nocturnal eye.

"The conventional architecture seen in almost all nuclei is invariably present in the rod cells of diurnal mammals, including primates, pigs and squirrels," said Boris Joffe of Ludwig-Maximilians University Munich. "On the other hand, the unique inverted architecture is universally present in nocturnal mammals," for instance, mice, cats and deer.

That architecture has important ramifications for the optical properties of those cells, added Jochen Guck of the University of Cambridge. "Diurnal nuclei are basically scattering obstacles," he said. "In nocturnal animals, they are little lenses. In one case, light is scattered in all directions and in the other it is focused in the forward direction," meaning that even at night, what little light there is can travel deeper into the eye where it can be perceived.

Coming to the realization that the structure of the nuclei of rod cells might have something to do with animals' behavior at night versus during the day took a great leap and an interdisciplinary team, Joffe added. That's because biologists typically think of DNA and its packaging into chromatin in terms of its effect on gene activity. "We tried every other possible explanation," Joffe added. "The idea that it had something to do with vision was a daring idea. People laughed at first."