{"id":2173,"date":"2026-09-02T13:22:40","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T21:22:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/probemonkey.com\/?page_id=2173"},"modified":"2026-09-02T16:12:01","modified_gmt":"2026-09-03T00:12:01","slug":"aquatic-eye-lens-omics","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/probemonkey.com\/?page_id=2173","title":{"rendered":"Aquatic Eye Lens Omics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">The Martin Lab uses the Vermilion rockfish (<em>Sebastes miniatus<\/em>) as a model for investigating crystallin stability and lens refractivity. Rockfish lenses are comparable to human lenses in size (~10 mm in diameter) and lifespan (~60 years), while containing exceptionally high concentrations of crystallins (~800 mg\/mL compared to ~400 mg\/mL in humans). Unlike the human optical system where the cornea provides the majority of refractive power due to the air\u2013cornea refractive interface, the rockfish lens provides substantially greater lens-dependent optical focusing power. These characteristics make vermilion rockfish particularly well suited for studying native crystallin proteins and the relationship between crystallin composition, structure, solubility, and lens transparency.<\/span><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\"><span style=\"color: #333399;\">Current projects use untargeted bottom-up proteomics to compare fresh, transparent and damaged, opaque rockfish lenses, with the goal of characterizing changes in crystallin composition, protein solubility, and post-translational modifications. We also aim to use MALDI imaging mass spectrometry to investigate the spatial distribution of lens proteins and molecular changes across the lens age gradient. We are invested in applying this process to exceptionally long-lived vertebrates as we aim to investigate how crystallins and other lens proteins maintain their stability over extreme timescales. These approaches allow us to examine how lens proteins change with age and damage and may reveal mechanisms that promote long-term protein stability and preserve lens transparency.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Martin Lab uses the Vermilion rockfish (Sebastes miniatus) as a model for investigating crystallin stability and lens refractivity. Rockfish&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2173","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/probemonkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/probemonkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/probemonkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/probemonkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/probemonkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2173"}],"version-history":[{"count":12,"href":"https:\/\/probemonkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2214,"href":"https:\/\/probemonkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2173\/revisions\/2214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/probemonkey.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}