IDENTIFICATION OF HEMORPHINS FROM BOVINE HEMOGLOBIN HYDROLYSATE - APPLICATION OF UV 2ND-ORDER DERIVATIVE SPECTROSCOPY

Aromatic amino acids have very informative second order derivative spe ctra. Whereas they exhibit overlapping maxima between 250 and 300nm in the zero order spectra, thin minima are obtained in their second orde r derivative spectra. This feature allowed to develop a method to iden tify aromatic amino acids, but also to calculate the ratio between the se amino acids in peptides and proteins. This method has been used suc cessfully for the detection of hemorphins in a peptic bovine hemoglobi n hydrolysate. The constant ratios between aromatic amino acids are an important characteristic of lots of bioactive peptides; the advantage of this spectral method is to be non-destructive for the identificati on of these amino acids espacially for tryptophan.