Studies of the fluorescence from tryptophan in melittin.

The fluorescence lifetime and rotational correlation time of the tryptophan residue in melittin, as both a monomer and tetramer, have been measured between pH 6 and 11. The fluorescence decays are non-exponential and give lifetimes of 0.7 +/- 0.1 ns and 3.1 +/- 0.1 ns. This emission is consistent with a model in which the tryptophan residue is in slightly different environments in the protein. In a dilute solution of monomer the mean fluorescence lifetime is 2.3 +/- 0.1 ns, below pH 10, but falls to 1.7 ns at higher pH. In contrast, the melittin tetramer has a mean fluorescence lifetime of only 2.2 ns at pH 6, which falls to 1.9 ns by pH 8, and falls again above pH 10 to the same value as in monomeric melittin. The behaviour between pH 6 and 8 is explained as the quenching of the Trp residue by lysine groups, which are near to the Trp in the tetramer but in the monomer, are too distant to quench. Fluorescence anisotropy decays show that the Trp residue has considerable freedom of motion and the range of "wobbling" motion is 35 +/- 10 degrees in the tetramer.