STRUCTURE AND FUNCTION OF THE PHOTORECEPTOR STENTORINS IN STENTOR-COERULEUS .1. PARTIAL CHARACTERIZATION OF THE PHOTORECEPTOR ORGANELLE AND STENTORINS

The unicellular ciliary protozoan, Stentor coeruleus, exhibits photophobic and phototactic responses to visible light stimuli. The pigment granule contains the photoreceptor chromoproteins (stentorins). Stentorin localized in the pigment granules of the cell serves as the primary photoreceptor for the photophobic and phototactic responses in this organism. An initial characterization of the pigment granules has been described in terms of size, absorbance spectra and ATPase activity. Two forms of the stentorin pigments have been isolated from the pigment granules. Stentorin I has an apparent molecular weight of 68600 and 52000 by SDS-PAGE (at 10 and 13% gel, respectively) or 102000 by steric exclusion HPLC, whereas stentorin II is a larger molecular assembly probably composed of several proteins (mol. wt. greater than 500000). Stentorin I is composed of at least two heterologous subunits corresponding to apparent mol. wts. of 46000 (fluorescent, Coomassie blue negative) and 52000 (fluorescent, Coomassie blue positive) on SDS-PAGE (13% gel). However, these values were found to be strongly dependent on the degree of crosslinking in the acrylamide gel. Stentorin II appears to be the primary photoreceptor whose absorption and fluorescence properties are consistent with the action spectra for the photoresponses of the ciliate to visible light. © 1990.