A new microspectrophotometric method for measuring absorbance of rat photoreceptors.

A method has been developed for obtaining visual pigment absorbance spectra from fixed, frozen sections of the albino rat retina. The retinas are transversely sectioned at various thicknesses on a cryo-microtome and the resulting slices are examined with a photon-counting microspectrophotometer. Problems caused by the limited pigment content of small receptors are reduced and measurements can be made at well-specified locations along the retinal section. This method is both precise and accurate and permits comparisons across sections and across animals.