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Cone-driven retinal responses are shaped by rod but not cone HCN1
Journal article   Open access   Peer reviewed

Cone-driven retinal responses are shaped by rod but not cone HCN1

Colten K Lankford, Yumiko Umino, Deepak Poria, Vladimir Kefalov, Eduardo Solessio and Sheila A Baker
The journal of neuroscience : the official journal of the Society for Neuroscience, Vol.42(21), pp.4231-4249
04/18/2022
DOI: 10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2271-21.2022
PMCID: PMC9145265
PMID: 35437278
url
https://doi.org/10.1523/JNEUROSCI.2271-21.2022View
Published (Version of record) Open Access

Abstract

Signal integration of converging neural circuits is poorly understood. One example is in the retina where the integration of rod and cone signaling is responsible for the large dynamic range of vision. The relative contribution of rods versus cones is dictated by a complex function involving background light intensity and stimulus temporal frequency. One understudied mechanism involved in coordinating rod and cone signaling onto the shared retinal circuit is the hyperpolarization activated current ( ) mediated by HCN1 channels expressed in rods and cones. opposes membrane hyperpolarization driven by activation of the phototransduction cascade and modulates the strength and kinetics of the photoreceptor voltage response. We examined conditional knockout of HCN1 from mouse rods using electroretinography. In the absence of HCN1, rod responses are prolonged in dim light which altered the response to slow modulation of light intensity both at the level of retinal signaling and behavior. Under brighter intensities, cone-driven signaling was suppressed. To our surprise, conditional knockout of HCN1 from mouse cones had no effect on cone-mediated signaling. We propose that is dispensable in cones due to the high level of temporal control of cone phototransduction. Thus, HCN1 is required for cone-driven retinal signaling only indirectly by modulating the voltage response of rods to limit their output. Hyperpolarization gated HCN1 channels carry a feedback current that helps to reset light-activated photoreceptors. Using conditional HCN1 knockout mice we show that ablating HCN1 from rods allows rods to signal in bright light when they are normally shut down. Instead of enhancing vision this results in suppressing cone signaling. Conversely, ablating HCN1 from cones was of no consequence. This work provides novel insights into the integration of rod and cone signaling in the retina and challenges our assumptions about the role of HCN1 in cones.

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