BALTIMORE, March 10 (UPI) -- U.S. medical scientists say they've identified a protein that regulates how light-sensing nerve cells form in the retina during the eye's development.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Washington University School of Medicine said their findings could help scientists better understand how the body's nerve cells develop.
"We've found a protein that seems to serve as a general switch for photoreceptor cell development," said Johns Hopkins Assistant Professor Seth Blackshaw, who led the study. "This protein coordinates the activity of multiple proteins, acting like a conductor of an orchestra, instructing some factors to be more active and silencing others and thus contributing to the development of light-sensitive cells of the eye."
The research appeared in the Jan. 29 issue of the journal Neuron.
