OPN3
Protein-coding gene in the species Homo sapiens
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Opsin-3 also known as encephalopsin or panopsin[4] is a protein that, in humans, is encoded by the OPN3 gene.[5][6][7] Alternative splicing of this gene results in multiple transcript variants encoding different protein isoforms.[8]
| OPN3 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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| Aliases | OPN3, ECPN, PPP1R116, opsin 3 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| External IDs | OMIM: 606695; MGI: 1338022; HomoloGene: 40707; GeneCards: OPN3; OMA:OPN3 - orthologs | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Function
Opsins are members of the G protein-coupled receptor superfamily. In addition to the visual opsins, mammals possess several photoreceptive non-visual opsins that are expressed in tissues outside the eye. The opsin-3 gene is strongly expressed in brain and testis and weakly expressed in liver, placenta, heart, lung, skeletal muscle, kidney, and pancreas. The gene is expressed in the skin[8] and may also be expressed in the retina. The protein has the canonical features of a photoreceptive opsin protein,[7] however in human skin, OPN3 is not photoreceptive and acts as a negative regulator of melanogenesis.[9]
Applications
When OPN3 analogues are expressed in neurons, activation by light inhibits neurotransmitter release.[10][11] This makes these analogues useful tools for optogenetic silencing, a method to study the impact of specific neurons on brain function.
