The Nature of Taurine Binding in the Retina

Abstract

Lombardini and Prien¹ reported on the kinetics of taurine binding to rat retinal membranes and outlined the basic methodology behind binding experiments. Like most binding studies, the binding of radiolabeled ligand was counted in the presence of varying concentrations of unlabeled ligand under conditions which favor binding over transport. These conditions include low incubation temperatures and denaturation of tissue samples, both of which inhibit, in theory, active transport. Binding kinetics were then calculated using non-linear regression analysis of the binding curves through the range of total ligand concentrations, or alternately, linear regression analysis of the Scatchard plots. Binding kinetics include the dissociation constant (Kd) which is the total ligand concentration that produces half-maximal binding, and the estimated maximal binding level (Bmax). These values are used to specifically characterize the binding of a particular ligand.