Normal mode calculations have been done on a range of disulfide bridge conformations in order to determine how the SS stretch and CS stretch frequencies depend on structure. In addition to varying the C alpha C beta SS and NC alpha C beta S dihedral angles, we have varied the phi, psi of the adjoining peptide groups since we have shown that these also influence the above frequencies. In order to obtain structural information from the observed frequencies, we have done a study of the conformational states found in 92 disulfide bridges in 25 known protein structures. This permits making a statistically based correlation between CS stretch frequencies and the possible contributing conformers.