A standardized nomenclature for the rods and cones of the vertebrate retina

Baden, Tom; Angueyra, Juan M; Bosten, Jenny M; Collin, Shaun P; Conway, Bevil R; Cortesi, Fabio; Dedek, Karin; Euler, Thomas; Novales Flamarique, Iñigo; Franklin, Anna; Haverkamp, Silke; Kelber, Almut; Neuhauss, Stephan C F; Li, Wei; Lucas, Robert J; Osorio, Daniel C; Shekhar, Karthik; Tommasini, Dario; Yoshimatsu, Takeshi; Corbo, Joseph C

doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.3003157

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Baden, T., Angueyra, J. M., Bosten, J. M., Collin, S. P., Conway, B. R., Cortesi, F., Dedek, K., Euler, T., Novales Flamarique, I., Franklin, A., Haverkamp, S., Kelber, A., Neuhauss, S. C. F., Li, W., Lucas, R. J., Osorio, D. C., Shekhar, K., Tommasini, D., Yoshimatsu, T., & Corbo, J. C. (2025). A standardized nomenclature for the rods and cones of the vertebrate retina. PLoS Biology, 23(5), e3003157. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pbio.3003157

Abstract

Vertebrate photoreceptors have been studied for well over a century, but a fixed nomenclature for referring to orthologous cell types across diverse species has been lacking. Instead, photoreceptors have been variably—and often confusingly—named according to morphology, presence/absence of ‘rhodopsin’, spectral sensitivity, chromophore usage, and/or the gene family of the opsin(s) they express. Here, we propose a unified nomenclature for vertebrate rods and cones that aligns with the naming systems of other retinal cell classes and th