Absorption of light quanta by microbial rhodopsins (or more generally by retinal proteins) leads to conversion of the light energy to the generation of transmembrane anion or cation gradients, optically gated channels, or signal states in photoreception. All these processes are accompanied by series of reaction steps with half-times ranging from femtoseconds to seconds or longer (photocycles). The number of these steps and their kinetic and spectral properties are the essential experimental information required for determination of the mechanism of light energy conversion in these proteins. Here we describe experiments and data analysis providing this information.
Keywords: Bacteriorhodopsin; Kinetics; Laser flash photolysis; Photocycle; Retinal proteins; Time-resolved spectroscopy.
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