The open reading frames of full-length arrestin with C-terminal FLAG tag and full length rhodopsin with C-terminal HA tag were cloned into pcDNA6. Cysteine mutations (41 for arrestin and 51 for rhodopsin) were systematically introduced into arrestin and rhodopsin in these two DNA vectors. AD293 cells were split one day before transfection at 50,000 cells/well in a 24-well plate. Cells were grown for one day, then transfected with 100 ng rhodopsin constructs (pcDNA6-rho-3HA) plus 100 ng arrestin plasmid (pcDNA6-Arr-3FLAG) by Lipofectamine 2000 (DNA/Lipofectamine 2000 ratio of 1:2) in each well. Cells were grown for 2 days after transfection, and were then treated at room temperature with H
2O
2, which was freshly diluted in the cell culture medium to a final concentration of 1 mM. After 5 min treatment with H
2O
2, the medium was aspirated and 100 μl of
CelLytic M (Sigma C2978) were added to each well and the plate was shaken for 10 min at room temperature. Cell lysates were transferred to 1.5 ml tubes and spun at 16,000 x g at 4 °C for 5 min. The supernatants (10 μl) were mixed with an equal volume of 2×SDS loading buffer (without reducing agents) for 5 min at room temperature, and loaded onto a protein gel for Western blot analysis. HRP-conjugated
anti-FLAG (Sigma M2) and
anti-HA (Sigma) antibodies were used to probe for free and cross-linked arrestin and rhodopsin proteins.
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