The Absorption Properties of Tyrosine

The aromatic amino acids each have two major absorption bands in the wavelength region between 200 and 300 nm (see reviews by Beaven and Holiday(13) and Wetlaufer(14). The lower energy band occurs near 280 nm for tryptophan, 277 nm for tyrosine, and 258 nm for phenylalanine, and the extinction coefficients at these wavelengths are in the ratio 27 7 l.(14) As a result of the spectral distributions and relative extinction coefficients of the aromatic amino acids, tryptophan generally dominates the absorption, fluorescence, and phosphorescence spectra of proteins that also contain either of the other two aromatic amino acids. 

Ionization of the phenol hydroxyl group in tyrosine shifts the 277-nm absorption peak to 294 nm and the 223-nm peak to 240 nm. The molar extinction coefficient for the peak of the lower energy band increases from about 1350 M l cm-1 to about 2350 M em-1 and for the higher energy band from about 8200 M cm-1 to about. 1,000 M l cm-1.113 141 In addition, the lower energy absorption band of tyrosine shows vibrational structure that is lost upon ionization of the phenol side chain. 

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