While GAPs serve to regulate the G proteins, there is also some level of regulation of the GAPs themselves. Many GAPs have allosteric sites that serve as interfaces with downstream targets of the particular path that they regulate. For example, RGS9-1, the GAP in the photoreceptors from above, interacts with cGMP phosphodiesterase (cGMP PDE), a downstream component of phototransduction in the retina. Upon binding with cGMP PDE, RGS9-1 GAP activity is enhanced. In other words, a downstream target of photoreceptor-induced signaling binds and activates the inhibitor of signaling, GAP. This positive regulatory binding of downstream targets to GAP serves as a negative feedback loop that eventually turns off the signaling that was originally activated. GAPs are regulated by targets of the G protein that they regulate.