Chem., 272, 17086 -17090). Although the iminoxyl radicals detected in the photosystem II and prostaglandin H synthase-2 systems strongly suggest a mechanism involving 3-nitrosotyrosine, the iminoxyl radical ESR spectrum was not unequivocally identified as originating from tyrosine. We report here the detection of the non-protein L-tyrosine iminoxyl radical generated by two methods: 1) peroxidase oxidation of synthetic 3-nitroso-N-acetyl-L-tyrosine and 2) peroxidase oxidation of free L-tyrosine in the presence of nitric oxide. A newly developed ESR technique that uses immobilized enzyme was used to perform the ESR experiments. Analysis of the high resolution ESR spectrum of the tyrosine iminoxyl radical generated from free tyrosine and nitric oxide reveals a 28.4-G isotropic nitrogen hyperfine coupling and a 2.2-G proton hyperfine coupling assigned to the proton originally ortho to the phenoxyl oxygen.Protein-derived radicals play an important role in enzymatic catalysis (1). The tyrosyl radical has been identified in a number of enzyme systems including photosystem II (2, 3), ribonucleotide reductase (4, 5), prostaglandin H synthase (6), DNA photolyase (7,8), and bovine liver catalase (9). Modified tyrosyl radicals have been observed in galactose oxidase (10, 11) and cytochrome c oxidase (12). The reaction of a tyrosyl radical cofactor with nitric oxide has been shown to inhibit enzyme activity. When photosystem II is exposed to NO, the stable tyrosyl radical cofactor Y D ⅐ is reversibly quenched (13). In addition, NO reversibly quenches the redox-active Y Z ⅐ in manganese-depleted photosystem II and the S3 state (an exchangecoupled complex involving Y Z ⅐ ) in acetate-treated photosystem II (14). When ribonucleotide reductase is exposed to NO, enzymatic activity is diminished; in addition the tyrosyl radical cofactor that resides on the R2 subunit is reversibly quenched (15)(16)(17). These studies with photosystem II and ribonucleotide reductase provide important insights into the reactivity of the tyrosyl radical and NO but provide little information regarding the nature of the tyrosyl radical/NO interaction.Exposure of photosystem II to NO followed by illumination at 200 K results in the quenching of the tyrosyl radical and the formation of an additional radical species that was assigned by ESR 1 as the tyrosine iminoxyl radical (ϾCϭN-O ⅐ ) based on the large nitrogen hyperfine-coupling constant (A iso ϭ 29.3 G) (18). When prostaglandin H synthase-2 is exposed to NO, the tyrosyl radical associated with enzymatic turnover is eliminated, and an additional radical species, similar to the one seen during the NO exposure/illumination in photosystem II, is detected. This radical is also assigned to the tyrosine iminoxyl radical (19,20). The observation of the tyrosine iminoxyl radical species in photosystem II and prostaglandin H synthase-2 prompted the proposal of Scheme 1.The reaction between tyrosyl radical (Scheme 1, A) and NO is near diffusion limited (1-2 ϫ 10 9 M Ϫ1 s Ϫ1 ) (21); a major product is expected t...