Photochemistry of Bacteriorhodopsin with Various Oligomeric Statuses in Controlled Membrane Mimicking Environments: A Spectroscopic Study from Femtoseconds to Milliseconds

Preparing transmembrane protein in controllable lipid bilayers is essential for unravelling the coupling of the environments and its dynamic functions. Monomerized bacteriorhodopsin (mbR) embedded in covalently circularized nanodiscs was prepared with dimyristoylphosphatidylglycerol (DMPG) lipid and circular membrane scaffold proteins of two different sizes, cE3D1 and cΔH5, respectively. The retinal photoisomerization kinetics and thermodynamic photocycle were examined by femtosecond and nanosecond transient absorption, respectively, covering the time scale from femtoseconds to hundreds of milliseconds. The kinetics of the retinal isomerization and proton migration from the protonated Schiff base to Asp-85 were not significantly different for monomeric bR solubilized in Triton X-100 or embedded in circularized nanodiscs. This can be ascribed to the local tertiary structures at the retinal pocket vicinity being similar among monomeric bR in various membrane mimicking environments. However, the aforemention...