It is majorly found in the iris, cornea, ciliary epithelium, Muller cells, the pineal gland and oligodendrocytes of the optic nerve and brain.

This protein is also found in other tissues than the aforementioned ones, however its function in cells not related to the eyes are not yet known [14] When a visual pigment molecule in photoreceptors of mammalian rod and cone cells are triggered by photons of light, the pigment molecule is unable to detect an ensuing photon of light.

The 11-cis chromophore is then signalled back into photoreceptor cells, where it undergoes fusion with a free opsin molecule to regenerate the visual pigment.

[14] People suffering from Bothnia dystrophy have a homozygous C to T base pair substitution in exon 7 of the RLBP1 gene.

[19] Katsanis et al. showed that a homozygous alteration from Arginine to Glutamine amino acid expression, at the 150 position on RLBP1, brings about the onset of retinitis punctata albescens and or fundus albipunctatus.