Trifluoperazine is more effective than chlorpromazine in releasing oxygen from haemoglobin and myoglobin

The extent of oxygen release from two heme proteins, haemoglobin and myoglobin have been studied in the presence of trifluoperazine and chlorpromazine (5-1000 mu M). At a molar ratio (drug:protein) of 1 . 5, the release of oxygen from haemoglobin was 4 and 15% in the presence of chlorpromazine and trifluoperazine respectively, while from myoglobin the corresponding values were 20 and 40%. The findings were attributed to the greater extent of local conformational change around tryptophan moieties of each of the proteins induced by trifluoperazine.