1
$\begingroup$

In my high school textbook, it is written that they are similar. So, I was just curious to know about this. Thank you.

Improve this question
$\endgroup$
1
  • 1
    $\begingroup$ Welcome to Biology.SE! We recommend all posters here attempt to search for an answer to their own question and explicitly indicate what research they've already done, what they learned, and what is still confusing or unknown to them. Our goal is not to be a simple Q&A site, but rather a site that promotes self-learning with some expert help along the way. Please take a moment to edit your post with this additional detail, and it will likely be received more positively by our community. Thank you for being a part of this SE! $\endgroup$
    – Imtiaz Raqib
    Aug 22, 2019 at 17:01

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
2
$\begingroup$

Although they are similar in both bacteriorhodopsins and rhodopsins being retinal-binding proteins, the similarity in their amino acid sequence is very limited.

The key difference between them is that rhodopsin is a G-protein-coupled receptor, and this is not the case with bacteriorhodopsin. A quick Google search on Bacteriorhodopsin vs Rhodopsin will send you to a Wikipedia article that says:

Bacteriorhodopsin belongs to the microbial rhodopsins. They have similarities to vertebrate rhodopsins, the pigments that sense light in the retina. Rhodopsins also contain retinal; however, the functions of rhodopsin and bacteriorhodopsin are different, and there is limited similarity in their amino acid sequences. Both rhodopsin and bacteriorhodopsin belong to the 7TM receptor family of proteins, but rhodopsin is a G protein-coupled receptor and bacteriorhodopsin is not.

A very good paper if you would like to know more about the two is by H. Gobind Khorana on the Two light-transducing membrane proteins.

Improve this answer
$\endgroup$

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .