Abstract
We report here the first picosecond resonance Raman studies of visual pigments. Flowing samples of rhodopsin and isorhodopsin are photolysed and simultaneously probed by 30 psec pulses at 532 nm from a low-energy, high- repetition-rate doubled Nd:YAG laser. At intensities sufficient to cause moderate photoalteration during each pulse, both molecules exhibit Raman bands in the 850 to 940 cm−1 region that are distinctive to bathorhodopsin in a twisted all-trans configuration. The presence of these lines in our resonance Raman spectra indicates that the photoisomerization of retinal to its al1-trans form must be essentially complete within picoseconds after the absorption of a photon.
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© 1980 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg
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Hayward, G., Carlsen, W., Siegman, A., Stryer, L. (1980). Picosecond Resonance Raman Spectroscopy: The Initial Photolytic Event in Rhodopsin and Isorhodopsin. In: Shank, C.V., Hochstrasser, R., Kaiser, W. (eds) Picosecond Phenomena II. Springer Series in Chemical Physics, vol 14. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-87861-9_75
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-87861-9_75
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
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