[Light-induced dephosphorylation of phosphoproteins in rod outer segments in bovine and frog retina]

Several lines of evidence have suggested that protein phosphorylation and dephosphorylation may play an important role in the regulation of metabolism and signal transduction processes. In our present study, bovine and frog retinas were incubated in Krebs' solution containing [32P] H3PO4 for the labelling of all phosphoproteins. Then, photoreceptor outer segments were isolated from each retina, and further incubated under dark or light conditions. In such conditions, several phosphoproteins were dark- or light-dependently dephosphorylated. Interestingly, the light-dependent dephosphorylated 39 kDa protein as well as the 35-36 kDa protein was commonly observed in both bovine and frog retinas. The 35-36 kDa protein is considered to be the same as the 33 kDa protein that has previously been shown to be phosphorylated light-dependently, whereas 39 kDa protein is thought to be a novel protein that undergoes light-dependent dephosphorylation in retinal photoreceptor outer segments. Thus, these proteins were thought to have significant roles in the visual transduction processes.