Figure 9.

Diffusion of visual pigment and retinaloxime in gecko rods. A and B-D represent recordings from different cells. A: Dissipation of visual pigment concentration gradient after half-field bleach proceeds in gecko substantially faster than in amphibians, but is also grossly incomplete. B: Equilibration of retinaloxime in gecko ROS was more than by an order of magnitude slower than in frog or salamander. C, D: Absorbance spectra that were recorded at 8.5 min postbleach from the same cell as in B. Equilibration of both the visual pigment and retinaloxime was incomplete. Smooth lines are visual pigment template fits to the long-wave peaks of the postbleach absorbance spectra. Noisy curves were obtained by subtracting the template curves from the postbleach spectra and represent retinaloxime. Extra rhodopsin (peaks at approximately 520 nm) remained in the unbleached ROS half while retinaloxime (peaks at 365 nm) was formed and stayed predominantly in the bleached half.