Chemical Reaction Modification can Improve Vision

Researchers successfully used a modified form of vitamin A, called locked retinal, to induce the recycling mechanism and engage proteins central to human vision. The targeted proteins include light-sensing rhodopsin, which belongs to a family of proteins -- G protein-coupled receptors, or GPCRs -- that sit in cell membranes and transmit external cellular cues into internal cell signaling pathways. The discovery opens a new therapeutic opportunity for modified retinals that help improve vision, and offers a major improvement over current therapeutics designed to perturb cell signaling in the eye...