Studies on cephalopod rhodopsin. Fatty acid esters of sucrose as effective detergents.

Squid rhodopsin was extracted with solutions of fatty acid esters of sucrose (monolaurate and monostearate) and purified by DEAE-cellulose and concanavalin A-Sepharose affinity chromatography. The purified rhodopsin (A280/A480 = 2.5) contained 2.3 mol of glucosamine and 1.2 mol of phospholipid per mol of rhodopsin. The photoproduct metarhodopsin was also stable in these detergent solutions as in digitonin solution. Concanavalin A had no affinity for retinochrome.