Effects of amino acid substitutions in the F helix of bacteriorhodopsin. Low temperature ultraviolet/visible difference spectroscopy.

Site-specific mutagenesis in combination with low temperature UV/visible difference spectroscopy has been used to investigate the role of individual amino acids in the structure and function of bacteriorhodopsin (bR). We examined the effects of eight single amino acid substitutions, all in the putative F helix, on the absorption of bR as well as formation of the K and M intermediates. Both the absorbance spectra and the photocycle difference spectra of Escherichia coli expressed bR as well as the mutants S183A, P186G, and E194Q all closely resembled the corresponding purple membrane spectra. In contrast the Pro-186----Leu substitution resulted in the loss of the normal photocycle and a large blue shift in the bR state lambda max. Thus, Pro-186 appears to play a critical role in maintaining the normal protein-chromophore interactions, although the pyrrolidine ring is not essential since proline could be replaced by glycine at this position. The mutants W182F, W189F, and S193A did not appear to be directly involved in the bathochromic shift of bR since they all had lambda max's close to that of purple membrane and produced intermediates similar to K and M. However, alterations in the UV and visible difference spectra as well as the appearance of some irreversibility in the photoreactions indicate that these mutants have altered protein-chromophore interactions during the photocycle. Unlike the other mutants examined, Y185F exhibited a red-shifted form of bR and K raising the possibility that Tyr-185 is directly involved in color regulation. In addition, UV difference peaks previously associated with a tyrosine deprotonation were absent in Y185F indicating that Tyr-185 undergoes protonation changes during the photocycle in agreement with recent Fourier transform infrared difference measurements (Braiman, M.S., Mogi, T., Stern, L. J., Hackett, N., Chao, B. H., Khorana, H.G., and Rothschild, K. J. (1988) Proteins: Structure, Function, and Genetics 3, 219-229). Our results suggest that Trp-182, Tyr-185, Pro-186, Trp-189, and Ser-193, all of which are within a 100 degrees segment of the F helix, are part of a retinal-binding pocket.