CALCIUM AND MAGNESIUM BINDING IN NATIVE AND STRUCTURALLY PERTURBED PURPLE MEMBRANE

The number and identity of the metal cations bound to wild-type bacteriorhodopsin (bR) are determined by using inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry (ICP-MS) and ICP emission techniques. The results indicate that there at = 2 total Ca{sup 2+} and Mg{sup 2+} per bR molecule with a ratio of = 3:1 Ca{sup 2+} to Mg{sup 2+}. This observed ratio is found to agree with the calculated ratio using previously determined binding constants for the two high affinity sites of Ca{sup 2+} to deionized bR. This suggests that the high-affinity binding sites in deionized bR are similar to those in native bR. Structural perturbation of the native membrane by cleavage of the C-terminus decreases the number of ions per bR to 1.4. The observed ratio of total ions in this sample to total ions in bR is found to agree with that calculated using known binding constants for each. The results on the number of metal cations/bR and their ratio in bacteriorhodopsin agree with the calculated number using previously observed binding constants in deionized bO only if one assumes that the second high-affinity site (not the first) is removed by retinal removal. Removal of 75% of the lipids from the purple membranemore » is found to greatly reduce the number of metal cations from 2 to 0.16. This suggest that if metal cations are in the two high-affinity sites (which are the only type of binding sites evident in our native bR sample), the removal of lipids, known to change the protein tertiary structure, changes also the metal ion binding sites. 37 refs., 1 fig., 2 tabs.« less