Existence of two substates in the O intermediate of the bacteriorhodopsin photocycle.

The proton pumping cycle of bacteriorhodopsin (bR) is initiated when the retinal chromophore with the 13-trans configuration is photo-isomerized into the 13-cis configuration. To understand the recovery processes of the initial retinal configuration that occur in the late stage of the photocycle, we have performed a comprehensive analysis of absorption kinetics data collected at various pH levels and at different salt concentrations. The result of analysis revealed the following features of the late stages of the trans photocycle. i) Two substates occur in the O intermediate. ii) The visible absorption band of the first substate (O1) appears at a much shorter wavelength than that of the late substate (O2). iii) O1 is in rapid equilibrium with the preceding state (N), but O1 becomes less stable than N when an ionizable residue (X) with a pKa value of 6.5 (in 2 M KCl) is deprotonated. iv) At a low pH and at a low salt concentration, the decay time constant of O2 is longer than those of the preceding states, but the relationship between these time constants is altered when the medium pH or the salt concentration is increased. On the basis of the present observations and previous studies on the structure of the chromophore in O, we suspect that the retinal chromophore in O1 takes on a distorted 13-cis configuration and the O1-to-O2 transition is accompanied by cis-to-trans isomerization about C13C14 bond.