“…We have been using a combination of site-specific mutagenesis and I9F-NMR spectroscopy to investigate the structure, dynamics, and interactions of D-LDH labeled with fluorinated amino acids (Rule et al, 1985(Rule et al, , 1987aHo et al, 1989;Peersen et al, 1990;Truong et al, 1991a,b). The wild-type native enzyme contains five tryptophan residues (Rule et al, 1985;Ho et al, 1988), and the 19F-NMR spectrum of 5-fluorotryptophan (SF-Trp)-labeled wild-type D-LDH shows five peaks (Rule et al, 1987a,b). Tryptophan has been substituted for phenylalanine, tyrosine, isoleucine, and leucine at various positions throughout the enzyme, and the fluorinated native and substituted tryptophan residues of the active mutants have been used as probes of the local environment.…”