The decay of tryptophan emission from pig heart lactate dehydrogenase following pulsed excitation has been recorded in Tris buffer solution at pH 7.4. All tryptophan residues emit. A good least-squares two-component fit is obtained with [formula omitted] A longer lived emitter (τ = 7.4-8.1 ns) is also observed. Bound NADH strongly quenches most of the 6.8-ns emission, but the 1.2-ns component is relatively unaffected. The fluorescence is moderately quenched by acrylamide and only slightly quenched by r and Cs+. The pulsed and steady-state fluorescence is discussed in terms of a model with three lifetime classes of tryptophan, viz., 1, 4, and 8 ns. The three-dimensional structure of the enzyme-NADH complex is used to develop a description of the individual residues in terms of their lifetimes and sensitivity to NADH and I- quenching. The nonlinear NADH quenching is due to intersubunit energy transfer from Trp-248 to NADH. © 1979, American Chemical Society. All rights reserved.
