Kinetic studies of the pH‐induced conformational transition of the hydrophobic copolyelectrolyte of maleic acid and styrene in aqueous NaCl at ionic strength 0.09 were performed by an optical method at 25.0°C with a rapid reaction analyzer of high resolving power. A pH jump applied to a solution, in which the molecule is in the compact form, gives a kinetic trace from which, by appling the general kinetic theory of cooperative transitions, two mean relaxation times are determined. Plots of these relaxation times against the degree of ionization of the primary carboxyl groups of the maleic acid units agree well with theoretical predictions from the linear Ising model, where the molecule in the compact form is described as a random coil with hydrophobic “pockets.” The initiation parameter for a pocket obtained from the kinetic data is 0.036. On the other hand, the parameter calculated from the previous pH‐titration results by applying Zimm–Rice theory is 0.015 at the ionic strength 0.09 and 25.0°C. Such values are compared with those determined from pH‐titration data on other hydrophobic polyelectrolytes.

The temperature dependence of the conformational transition from a compact to expanded‐coil form of the alternating copolymer of maleic acid with styrene in aqueous 0.03M NaCl solution was studied at 15 to 40°C by pH titration, optical titration, and calorimetric measurements. The pH titration curve scarcely changed with temperature. The degree of dissociation of primary carboxyl groups in the copolymer at the midpoint of the conformational transition, determined by the optical titration, was almost independent of temperature. The standard enthalpy change of the transition at 25°C estimated from the calorimetric data was 0.363 kcal/mole, which may mean that the difference between the standard free energy changes of the transition at 20°C and 40°C does not exceed experimental error. The enthalpy change agrees well with the heat of transfer of benzene from the hydrophobic to the aqueous medium, and thus the compact form of the copolymer is considered to be stabilized by the hydrophobic interaction between the phenyl residues in the interior of the molecule.

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To study the interaction between carboxyl groups and amino groups in native lysozyme [EC 3.2.1.17], and to identify the positions and the pK values of the abnormal carboxyl groups, N-acetylated lysozyme was prepared. The acetylation did not affect the molecular shape of the enzyme, but changed six amino groups to a non-ionizable form, leaving one amino group free; this was determined to be Lys 33. In addition, pH titration of the acetylated lysozyme in 0.2 or 0.02 M KCl aqueous solution indicated fewer titratable groups with pK(int) of 7.8 or 10.4 compared with the native protein, though the number of titratable carboxyl groups was not affected by the acetylation. From the pH titration results and structural considerations, the unititratable carboxyl groups were suggested to be Asp 48, Asp 66, and Asp 87. On the other hand, spectrophotometric titration in 0.2 M KCl showed that all three tyrosine residues are titratable in the acetylated protein, although an abnormal tyrosine residue exists in the native state. Tyr 20 was suggested to be untitratable in the pH range of 8-12.6.