Site of attachment of 11-cis-retinal in bovine rhodopsin

A dipeptide containing the binding site for retinal in bovine rhodopsin has been isolated and its sequence determined. Rhodopsin containing [11-3H]retinal was prepared in chromatographically pure form, and the [3H]retinal was reductively linked to its binding site on opsin by using borane--dimethylamine. The [3H]retinylopsin in octyl glucoside was exhaustively digested with Pronase, and its peptides were separated on silica gel in chloroform/methanol/ammonia [Bownds, D. (1967) Nature (London) 216, 1178--1181] followed by silica gel thin-layer chromatography in two solvent systems. The major retinyl peptide was shown to be alanyl-N epsilon-retinyllysine by amino acid composition, 3H content, and amino acid sequence analysis. The retinyl binding site is located in the carboxyl-terminal region of rhodopsin: when rod cell disk membranes containing [3H]retinal rhodopsin were digested with thermolysin and then reacted with sodium borohydride or borane--dimethylamine, [3H]retinal was reduced onto the F2 (Mr congruent to 6000) fragment, which derives from rhodopsin's carboxyl-terminal region.