Sensory receptors enable animals to perceive their external world, and functional properties of receptors evolve to detect the specific cues relevant for an organism's survival. Changes in sensory receptor function or tuning can directly impact an organism's behavior. Functional tests of receptors from multiple species and the generation of chimeric receptors between orthologs with different properties allow for the dissection of the molecular basis of receptor function and identification of the key residues that impart functional changes in different species. Knowledge of these functionally important sites facilitates investigation into questions regarding the role of epistasis and the extent of convergence, as well as the timing of sensory shifts relative to other phenotypic changes. However, as receptors can also play roles in non-sensory tissues, and receptor responses can be modulated by numerous other factors including varying expression levels, alternative splicing, and morphological features of the sensory cell, behavioral validation can be instrumental in confirming that responses observed in heterologous systems play a sensory role. Expression profiling of sensory cells and comparative genomics approaches can shed light on cell-type specific modifications and identify other proteins that may affect receptor function and can provide insight into the correlated evolution of complex suites of traits. Here we review the evolutionary history and diversity of functional responses of the major classes of sensory receptors in vertebrates, including opsins, chemosensory receptors, and ion channels involved in temperature-sensing, mechanosensation and electroreception.

感觉受体使动物能够感知其外部世界，并且受体的功能特性不断发展，以检测与生物体生存相关的特定线索。感觉受体功能的改变或调节会直接影响生物体的行为。对来自多种物种的受体的功能进行测试，以及在具有不同特性的直系同源物之间生成嵌合受体，从而可以剖析受体功能的分子基础，并鉴定出赋予不同物种功能变化的关键残基。这些功能上重要的位点的知识有助于调查有关上位性的作用和收敛程度以及相对于其他表型变化的感觉转变时机的问题。然而，由于受体还可以在非感觉组织中发挥作用，并且受体反应可以受许多其他因素调节，包括变化的表达水平，替代性剪接和感觉细胞的形态特征，因此行为验证有助于确认异源反应系统起感觉作用。感觉细胞的表达谱和比较基因组学方法可以揭示细胞类型的特异性修饰，并鉴定其他可能影响受体功能的蛋白质，并可以洞察复杂性状的相关进化。在这里，我们回顾了脊椎动物主要感觉受体类别的进化历史和功能反应的多样性，包括视蛋白，化学感觉受体和参与温度感应的离子通道，