Light induced changes in the protein fluorescence of rhodopsin

In The present note we describe the light induced changes in the protein fluorescence of the frog retina and of rod-outer segments prepared from cattle retinas. In each case the emission is presumably from the tryptophan residues within the visual pigment protein as discussed by Ebrey (1972), since it is observed in the 350–360 nm region using excitation at 290 nm. It was our intent to use the fluorescence of opsin then as a probe of molecular events subsequent to the absorption of light.