Structural change due to acid-alkaline transition in hemeproteins were monitored by circular dichroism measurements in the Soret region. It was observed that in cytochrome c and horseradish peroxidase, alkaline transition results in a large change in the heme CD due to significant conformational change in the heme cavity region. In metmyoglobin a simple protolytic mechanism associated with alkaline transition involves very small conformational changes.

Detailed pH-dependent steady state and picosecond time-resolved tryptophan fluorescence studies on thiocyanate and azide complexes of horseradish peroxidase have been carried out. The fluorescence decay of the single tryptophan in these species was fitted to a discrete three exponential model. Maximum entropy method analysis also gave three distinct regions of lifetime distributions. The fast subnanosecond lifetime component was found to have > 97% amplitude contribution while other two longer lifetime components have small contributions. Small contributions from the nanosecond lifetime components possibly arise from apoprotein impurity or some small amount of disordered heme conformer of the protein. pH dependence of the fast picosecond lifetime components was found to show a systematic behavior which has been interpreted in the light of obligatory conformation change associated with activation of the enzyme at low pH.