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* Lehrstuhl für Biophysik, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, D-44780 Bochum, Germany; and
Laser Dynamics Laboratory, School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, Georgia
Correspondence: Address reprint requests to Klaus Gerwert, Lehrstuhl für Biophysik, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, D-44780 Bochum, Germany. Tel.: 49-234-32 24461; Fax: 49-234-32 14238; E-mail: gerwert{at}bph.ruhr-uni-bochum.de.
| ABSTRACT |
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| INTRODUCTION |
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Protonated hydrogen-bonded networks are monitored by the so-called continuum absorbance over a broad spectral range covering several hundred wavenumbers in the infrared region. This is shown in experimental and theoretical studies of numerous model systems (Lobaugh and Voth, 1996
; Vuilleumier and Borgis, 1999
; Zundel, 2000
; Kim et al., 2002
). To monitor proton transfer via the protonated hydrogen-bonded networks in proteins, broad infrared (IR) absorbance changes >1800 cm1 are investigated during the photocycle of bR. This spectral region is used because proteins do not absorb here (Olejnik et al., 1992
; Le Coutre et al., 1995
; Riesle et al., 1996
; Rammelsberg et al., 1998
; Wang and El-Sayed, 2000
).
Using a band pass filter with a cutoff frequency at 1950 cm1, Rammelsberg et al. showed that the kinetics of the integrated negative absorbance (bleach) between 19001800 cm1 was correlated with the proton transfer to the protein surface (Rammelsberg et al., 1998
). They concluded that a network of protonated internal water molecules stabilized by Glu-204 and located in a hydrophilic pocket on the extracellular proton release side deprotonates during this process. The idea of the proton release group being a protonated water network was also supported by theoretical studies (Spassov et al., 2001
; Rousseau et al., 2004
).
A further support was found by Wang and El-Sayed from the observed correlation between the temporal bleach behavior of the changes in the 18501800-cm1 region and the protonation of the COO group of Asp-85 during the bR photocycle as well as by the fact that the observed changes in this region do not occur in D2O (Wang and El-Sayed, 2000
). In a latter publication, Wang and El-Sayed expanded their studies to a broader frequency range by using a band pass filter with a cutoff at 3000 cm1 (Wang and El-Sayed, 2001
). In this study additional continua were reported: a transient bleach >2700 cm1, a transient bleach in the 25002150-cm1 region, and an absorption (not bleach) is observed in the 21001800-cm1 region. These continua have time constants of
300 µs, which could not be correlated to the characteristic time constants of the different processes monitored due to the changes in the retinal or protein absorption in the reaction center. The origin of these continua remains unassigned. The low energy continuum in the 21001800-cm1 region is found to have in addition a 60-µs component correlated with the L
M transition as first proposed by Rammelsberg et al. (1998)
. However, the fact that the continuum was absorptive rather than bleach (as observed by Rammelsberg et al.) would suggest that the polarizable proton chain is formed during the cycle (in <90 ns) before the K intermediate and then decays during the L
M transition. If it is a bleach signal, then the chain is present in the bR ground state (BR) and deprotonates during the L
M transformation.
To elucidate the exact mechanism of the proton transport during the bR function, it is important to assign the origin of the continua observed during the bR photocycle. Furthermore, it has to be determined whether the polarizable proton chain is already present in the parent molecule of bR and breaks during the proton pump, or is formed and breaks during the photocycle. Hence it is essential to determine the exact sign of the change in the 19001800-cm1 region.
This work is aimed at getting answers to these questions. The time-resolved experiments were carried out on the bR-E204Q mutant, which has no early proton release (Brown et al., 1995
). Furthermore, the frequencies of the different continua are compared with the Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) spectrum of water and of the resulting difference spectra observed when heating liquid water by as little as 0.2°C. In addition, a time-resolved measurement of a water-dye mixture was made to examine the influence of photothermal heating of water. The results were compared with those obtained during the wild-type bacteriorhodopsin (WT-bR) photocycle. These results suggest that all the continua observed, except for the weak bleach in the 19001800-cm1 region and >2500 cm1, are dominated by transient signals coming from photothermally heated water during the photocycle. The weak band in the 19001800-cm1 region is found to be a bleach band, but due to its overlap with the hot water absorptive band on its high energy side makes its apparent sign sensitive to the amount of water in the film, the film thickness, the laser power, and the type of filter used. The structure of the water complex, whose spectrum changes during the L
M transformation (in the 19001800-cm1 region), is proposed and its role in the proton transport is discussed.
| MATERIALS AND METHODS |
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Dye sample
A sample consisting of a saturated solution of indigocarmin was prepared and placed in the same sample holder as used in the bR experiment.
Measurements
Time-resolved step-scan FTIR measurements were performed at 20°C on a Bruker IFS66v (Bruker Optik GmbH, Ettlingen, Germany) and a Nicolet (Madison, WI) Magna-IR 860 spectrometer. Spectra were recorded with up to 10-ns time resolution and a spectral resolution of 410 cm1, between 3200 and 800 cm1. The bR samples were excited by a depolarized Nd:YAG laser at 532 nm (Spectra-Physics (Mountain View, CA) GCR-170), having an energy of 2 (mJ/cm2)/pulse and a pulse width of 6 ns length. Another Nd:YAG laser (Quantum Ray DCR3, Mountain View, CA) with a laser energy of 3 mJ/pulse and a pulse width of 10 ns was also used. Linear photovoltaic HgCdTe detectors (2050 MHz, Kolmar Technologies, Newburyport, MA) were used.
| RESULTS AND DISCUSSION |
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M transition to the protein surface (Heberle and Dencher, 1992
M transition and the continuum absorbance change is no longer observed. These results support the previous conclusions that absorbance changes in this region result from the proton pump process during the L to M transition.
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M transition, the M
N/O transition, and the N/O
BR relaxation. The negative continuum absorbance change (bleach) is formed in the L
M transition, when the proton is released to the extracellular surface. The released proton may also lead to a change in the hydrogen-bonded network along the surface. However, such changes are not observed here, because such a band should be positive due to its appearance during the M formation. Furthermore the absorbance change of a fluctuating proton on the protein surface might be very small or have different spectral characteristics due to its large mobility. Thus the continuum absorbance change represents the deprotonation of a protonated hydrogen-bonded network of internal water molecules on the proton release site (Rammelsberg et al., 1998
N transition is assigned to a proton transfer between Asp-96 and the Schiff base via a hydrogen-bonded network of internal water molecules (Le Coutre et al., 1995
Time-resolved mutant studies in the extended region >1900 cm1
Fig. 2 A gives a comparison of time-resolved FTIR difference spectra in the region between 25001740 cm1 for WT-bR and E204Q, taken 1 ms after laser excitation. This is the extended region observed by Wang and El Sayed (2001)
. Comparison of the time course for WT-bR and E204Q, averaged over the 23002200-cm1 region, is shown in Fig. 2 B.
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The origin of the absorbance changes >2100 cm1
Beside the changes in the 19001800-cm1 region, the observed change >1900 cm1 has a decay time of
300 µs and is observed in a perturbed bR system that has a late proton release. These spectral changes could thus arise from the photothermal heating of either water or the protein.
Fig. 3 A shows the FTIR difference spectra in the 25001740-cm1 region of a WT sample (dotted line) and pure water (dashed line) after increasing its temperature by 0.2°C above room temperature. In the same figure the changes in the early transient FTIR spectrum averaged between 100 ns and 1 µs after laser excitation (i.e., before proton release) is shown. In Fig. 3 B, a comparison between an early FTIR difference spectrum (100 ns1 µs) of bR (solid line) and E204Q (dotted line) (100 ns1 µs) and a late spectrum (1 ms) of bR (dashed line) is presented.
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300 µs (Wang and El-Sayed, 2001
300 µs transient components may be involved in proton translocation one way or the other, simply because they appear to be on the timescale between µs to ms, on which the two photo-intermediates M and N are identified. A detailed picture in protein interior on this timescale is still missing.
The spectrum of heated water
To reveal the exact spectral behavior of the artificial IR signal, which overlaps the time-resolved bR measurements, we performed a time-resolved step-scan measurement of a water-dye mixture. The dye (indigocarmin) only functions as a light absorber for heating the water. Fig. 4 A shows the time courses of four different spectral ranges of this measurement. The ns-change in the signal is due to the detector rise. The absorbance change observed within
20 µs is due to the relaxation of hot water to its initial state. This is faster in the water sample (water + dye) than in the bR sample (bR + water) due to the high heat conductivity of "pure" water and the lower sample thickness.
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The assignments of the different continua
Fig. 5 A shows an absorbance spectrum of native bR in H2O at pH
7. The spectrum reveals a broad band with a maximum at
2140 cm1 (Fig. 5 A). This band is due to a combination vibrational mode in the H2O solvent of the bending (
1600 cm1) and the two librations (L1
400 cm1, L2
700 cm1). Fig. 5 B shows the transient spectrum obtained 15 µs after laser excitation of bR at 532 nm with a power level of 1.2 mJ/pulse. In this early time delay the bleach at 19001800 cm1 is not formed. The spectral change at 26001800 cm1 can be deconvoluted into two bands, one absorptive band with a maximum at
1997 cm1 (22001800 cm1), and one bleach band in the region 26001800 cm1 with a maximum at
2147 cm1. A comparison of the two spectra in Fig. 5 suggests that the bleach band at 2147 cm1 and the absorptive band at 1997 cm1 result from the weak combination band of the H2O solvent. The bleach >2800 cm1 in Figs. 5 B and 4 B is due to a change of the water O-H stretch absorption seen >2800 cm1 in Fig. 5 A. But in addition to the band caused by heated water, there is another broad bleach band between 3000 and 2500 cm1. This band is identifiable by comparing the time-resolved bR spectrum with a corresponding heated water spectrum as done in Fig. 4 B. A broad negative band was also observed in low-temperature FTIR BR-K measurements and proposed to originate from a strong hydrogen-bonded water between the SB and Asp-85 (Kandori et al., 1998
; Hayashi and Ohmine, 2000
; Tanimoto et al., 2003
). The assignment of this broad band at room temperature is not yet clear and needs further experiments. It might correlate with the whole water cluster close to the Schiff base (Kandt et al., 2004
; Fig. 6).
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60% (Tittor and Oesterhelt, 1990
6 ns). The heat released from the retinal is then absorbed by the surrounding protein and water molecules. Actually the rise time of the bleach band at 2147 cm1 has been determined to be <20 ns (data not shown). This heat is finally removed from the monitoring volume in
300 µs for the bR sample as a result of heat conduction. This light-to-heat conversion and the temperature reversion could be well reproduced by exchanging bR with a dye. A comparison of these two measurements resolves the broad absorbance changes originally from the bR photocycle and the spectral changes resulting from heated water that are shown significantly in the rest of the bands.
From the above discussion and Fig. 3, A and B, it is clear that there is a strong overlap between the spectral changes due to the hot water absorptive band in the 20401870 cm1 region and the weak bleach band in the 19001800 cm1 region. Thus the apparent sign of the 19001800 cm1 band will greatly depend on the absorption of the hot water band, which will depend on amount of water (thus the sample preparation), the laser power (the heating rate), the film thickness (the cooling rate), and the filter used to resolve them. We believe some of these effects must have led to the opposite observations reported on the sign of the band in the 19001800 cm1 region in the two studies by Wang and El-Sayed.
Structural support of possible proton pump mechanism
Recently, the proposal that a polarizable proton chain (Rammelsberg et al., 1998
) is involved in proton release was supported at the structural level. The
complex is believed to be stabilized between Glu-204 and Glu-194 in the proton release pathway (Fig. 6). This is based on an integrated approach combining high resolution x-ray data, FTIR measurements, pKa calculations, and molecular dynamics simulations (Rammelsberg et al., 1998
; Luecke et al., 1999
; Spassov et al., 2001
; Kandt et al., 2004
). There are two internal water densities within the proton release pathway that might contain protonated hydrogen-bonded water networks at the proton release site. One is close to the Schiff base, Asp-85, Tyr-185, and Asp-212, and the other between Arg-82, Glu-204, and Glu-194. Mutations of residues in the cavity close to the Schiff base do not affect the continuum absorbance between 1900 and 1800 cm1, but mutations in the lower pocket do (data not shown). Therefore, the protonated network of internal water molecules represented by the absorbance change between 1900 and 1800 cm1 is located in the lower pocket as indicated in Fig. 6.
| ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS |
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Mostafa A. El-Sayed and Jianping Wang thank the Chemical Sciences, Geosciences, and Biosciences Division, Office of the Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Sciences, United States Department of Energy (under grant DE-FG02-97ER14799) for financial support. Florian Garczarek and Klaus Gerwert gratefully acknowledge the support of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (GE 599/12-1).
| FOOTNOTES |
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Submitted on May 25, 2004; accepted for publication July 19, 2004.
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