Dichroic behavior of the absorbance signals from dyes NK2367 and WW375 in skeletal muscle fibers

Absorbance signals were recorded from voltage-clamped single muscle fibers stained with the nonpenetrating potentiometric dyes NK2367 and WW375 and illuminated with quasimonochromatic light from 560 to 800 nm, linearly polarized either parallel (0 degree) or perpendicular (90 degrees) to the fiber long axis. The signals from both dyes depend strongly on the incident polarization. At any wavelength and/or polarization condition, the total absorbance signal is a superposition of the same two signal components previously identified with unpolarized light (Heiny, J. A., and J. Vergara, 1982, J. Gen. Physiol., 80:203)--namely, a fast step signal from the voltage-clamped surface membrane and a signal reflecting the slower T-system potential changes. The 0 degree and 90 degrees spectra of both membranes have similar positive and negative absorbance peaks (720 and 670 nm, respectively, for dye NK2367; 740 and 700 nm for dye WW375); in addition, they have the same dichroic maxima (670 for NK2367; 700 for WW375). However, for the surface membrane, the 0 degrees spectra are everywhere more positive than the 90 degrees spectra, whereas the reverse is true for the T-system, which results in a dichroism of opposite sign for the two membranes. These spectral characteristics were analyzed using a general model for the potential-dependent response of an absorbing dye (Tasaki, I., and A. Warashina, 1976, Photochem. Photobiol., 24:191), which takes into account both the dye response and the membrane geometries. They are consistent with the proposal that the dye responds via a common mechanism in both membranes that consists of a dye reorientation and a change in the absorption maxima.