Light-dependent activation of rod transducin by pineal opsin

The pinneal gland expresses a unique member of the opsin family (P-opsin; Max, M., McKinnon, P, J., Seidenman, K. J, Barrett, R. K., Applebury, M. L., Takahaslai, J. S., and Margolskee, R. F. (1995) Science 267, 1502-1506) that may play a role in circadian entrainment and photo-regulation of melatonin synthesis. To study the function of this protein, are epitope-tagged P-opsin was stably expressed in anembryonic chicken pineal cell line. When incubated with 11-cis-retinal, a light-sensitive pigment was formed with a lambda(max) at 462 +/- 2 nm, P-opsin bleached slowly in the dark (t(1/2) = 2 h) in the presence of 50 mM hydroxylamine. Purified P-opsin in dodecyl maltoside activated rod transducin in a light-dependent manner, catalyzing the exchange of more than 300 mol of GTP gamma S (guanosine 5'-O-(3-thiotriphosphate))/mol of P-opsin. The initial rate for activation (75 mol of GTP gamma S bound/mol of P-opsin/min at 7 mu M) increased with increasing concentrations of transducin. The addition of egg phosphatidylcholine to P-opsin had little effect on the activation kinetics; however, the intrinsic rate of decay in the absence of transducin was accelerated. These results demonstrate that P-opsin is ale efficient catalyst for activation of rod transducin and suggest that the pineal gland may contain a rodlike phototransduction cascade.