Structural Stability of Bacteriorhodopsin Solubilized by Triton X-100

  • Sasaki, Takanori (Department of Biotechnology, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology) ;
  • Sonoyama, Masashi (Department of Biotechnology, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology) ;
  • Mukai, Yuri (Department of Biotechnology, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology) ;
  • Nakazawa, Chieko (Department of Biotechnology, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology) ;
  • Mitaku, Shigeki (Department of Biotechnology, Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology)
  • Published : 2002.08.01

Abstract

The structural stability of bacteriorhodopsin (bR) solubilized by Triton X-100 (TX-100) was studied by measuring the denaturation kinetics in the dark and under illumination, and compared with the structural stability of bR solubilized by octyl-${\beta}$-glucoside (OG). In the dark, bR solubilized by TX- 100 was more stable than bR solubilized by OG. Under illumination, bR solubilized by TX-100 showed light-induced denaturation in the same manner as bR solubilized by OG. These results in the dark well correlated with the experimental results of the visible CD band. Although solubilized bR in the TX-100 concentration range of 2-50 mM showed almost identical positive CD band and did not denature in the dark at 35$^{\circ}$C, the kinetic constant of the photobleaching increased with the increase of TX-100 concentration. These results suggested that photo-intermediates of solubilized bR are destabilized by TX-100 micelles.

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