Care of the elderly--assessing future needs.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Biomedical subjects
Publications and source records attributed to G Gingras.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Rhodospirillum rubrum strain F24.1 is a spontaneous revertant of nonphototrophic mutant F24 derived from wild-type strain S1. Strain F24 shows no detectable photochemical activity and contains, at most, traces of the photoreaction center polypeptides. Strain F24.1 has a phototrophic growth rate close to that of the wild-type strain (Picorel, R., del Valle-Tascón, S. and Ramírez, J.M. (1977) Arch. Biophys. Biochem. 181, 665-670) but shows little photochemical activity. Light-induced absorbance changes in the near-infrared, photoinduced EPR signals and ferricyanide-elicited absorbance changes indicate that strain F24.1 has a photoreaction center content of 7-8% as compared to strain S1. Polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis of isolated F24.1 chromatophores shows the photoreaction center polypeptides to be present in amounts compatible with this value. Photoreaction center was prepared from strain F24.1 and showed no detectable difference with that of strain S1. It is concluded that strain F24.1 photosynthesis is due entirely to its residual 7-8% of typical photoreaction center.
The photoreaction center from Rhodospirillum rubrum contains about 90% protein, 6% pigment, mere traces of lipids, and no cytochromes. It also contains at least 1 mol of ubiquinone and 1 iron atom per mol. Its three-component polypeptide chains were isolated by preparative electrophoresis, and their molar stoichiometry was established as 1:1:1. The amino acid composition of the photoreaction center from strain S1 and from its subunits is reported. The protein as a whole contains about 65% nonpolar residues, and the degree of hydrophobicity of its subunits is alpha less than beta less than gamma. The minimal molecular weight based on the extinction coefficient and on the amino acid content is 90 000. This corresponds to a half-cystine mole number of 6.
The photoreaction center from Rhodospirillum rubrum strain G9 binds about 6 times as much sodium dodecyl sulfate as certain proteins commonly used as molecular weight markers for sodium dodecyl sulfate--polyacrylamide gel electrophoresis. This presumably explains the apparent discrepancy between the molecular weight of the photoreaction center determined by electrophoresis (76 000) and its minimal molecular weight (87 000). The molecular weight of the photoreaction center solubilized with Triton X-100 was determined by three different methods: conventional sedimentation equilibrium, a combination of sedimentation velocity and gel filtration measurements, and sedimentation equilibrium in H2O and in D2O. Each technique required a determination of the amount of bound detergent. All three methods gave molecular weight values close to 60 000. A similar molecular weight was found for the photoactive beta gamma dimer obtained from the photoreaction center of Rhodopseudomonas sphaeroides strain 2.4.1 which, as a whole, had a molecular weight of 87 000. These results indicate that the photoreaction center from Rp. sphaeroides is an oligomer of the type alpha 1 beta 1 gamma 1. In contrast, the photoreaction center from Rs. rubrum appears to be dissociated, in solution, into a photoactive beta gamma dimer and a free polypeptide alpha.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
To find out whether weak or strong coupling exists between the bacteriochlorophyll molecules of the photoreaction center, the relative efficiency of energy transfer to P870 was measured at 795 nm and at 808 nm, at room temperature and at 77 degrees K. At room temperature, both relative efficiencies are close to 100%. However, at 77 degrees K, 795 nm light has a quantum efficiency of 76% and 808 nm light has an efficiency of 87%. These results confirm the fact that P800 is formed of at least one short wavelength component and one long wavelength component. Moreover, the short wavelength component is weakly coupled to both P870 and to the long wavelength component of P800. The conclusion is that the short wavelength component is due to monomeric bacteriochlorophyll. By comparison with other data, all four bacteriochlorophyll molecules of the photoreaction center are inferred to be monomeric.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
A randomly oriented sample of photoreaction center prepared from Rhodospirillum rubrum was excited at 77 degrees K by an actinic linearly polarized light of 870 nm. Under such conditions, only those chromophores with components of their absorption dipoles oriented parallel to the polarization of the actinic light are bleached. The change in absorbance at 900 nm of this photoselected sample was observed while varying the angle of polarization of a weak measuring light. The polarization of the absorbance change was thus evaluated as 0.25. This value is interpreted to mean that P870 is attributable to two absorption dipoles forming an angle included between 35.75 degrees and 90 degrees. Comparison with the p value of 0.5 obtained on a similar preparation by polarization of fluorescence (Ebrey, T. G. and Clayton, R.K. (1969) Photochem. Photobiol. 10, 109-117) leads to the conclusion that either these two dipoles emit fluorescence without being coupled by singlet-singlet energy transfer or that only one of them is a fluorescence emitter in the absence of reversible singlet-singlet energy transfer.