Characterization of the light-induced increase in the Michaelis constant of the cGMP phosphodiesterase in frog rod outer segments.

Activation of cGMP phosphodiesterase in rod disk membrane in the light is thought to be an intermediary process of phototransduction. In various preparations of frog rod outer segments, the Michaelis constant (Km) of the phosphodiesterase was measured with pH assay method. On illumination, the Km increased from the value of the dark (130 microM) by about 8-fold (1 mM) in crude preparations, but did not change appreciably in purified disk membranes, confirming the previous finding by Robinson et al. (Robinson, P.R., Kawamura, S., Abramson, B. and Bownds, M.D. (1980) J. Gen. Physiol. 76, 631-645). The present work further showed that the light-induced Km increase is labile to various experimental manipulations such as sonication, freeze-thawing, etc. However, the Km in the light was relatively high in a crude disk membrane preparation and in a lyzed preparation. In addition, reconstitution experiments revealed that the Km increase does not require soluble components. Both proteolytic digestion and phospholipase treatment reduced the light Km of the phosphodiesterase in crude disk membranes. The above results suggest that there is a labile factor(s) responsible for the light-induced Km increase and that the factor is a membrane-bound protein and requires structural integrity of the disk membrane to exert its function. The latency of the Km increase after light stimulation was less than 2 s.