THE PHOTOCHEMISTRY OF SPECIFIC TRYPTOPHAN RESIDUES IN PROTEINS AS ANALYZED BY THE FLUORESCENT SCANNING OF TRYPTIC PEPTIDE MAPS

Abstract— The fact that most proteins contain several tryptophans hinders the investigation of the photochemistry of a particular indole residue. A method is presented here that can be used to investigate the photochemistry of specific tryptophan residues in proteins. It consists simply of separating the peptides of a proteolytically digested protein by TLC and then scanning the peptides at the fluorescent maximum of tryptophan. The assignment of the resultant peaks to a particular peptide is based on the chromatographic comparison of the scans with peptide maps.
Using this method, the photochemistry of the tryptophan residues in alpha crystallin, a major protein of lenses, was investigated. Under photolytic conditions that mimic the transmission characteristics of the cornea (>293 nm), it was found that there is a differential photolysis of the tryptophan residues in the protein; with Trp-9 in the N-terminal peptide photolyzing at a considerably faster rate than Trp-60. In addition to tryptophan, photolytic losses of tyrosine were assessed by scanning the peptide maps at the tyrosine fluorescent maximum. Only one tyrosine residue photolyzes under these conditions. The differential photolysis of the tryptophan residues is explained in part by the presence of residues in the vicinity of the indole moieties.