Labeling proteins via hole burning of their aromatic amino acids: pressure tuning spectroscopy of BPTI

We demonstrate hole burning on a protein by using an intrinsic aromatic amino acid as a probe. The protein is bovine pancreatic trypsin inhibitor (BPTI), the labeled amino acid is tyrosine. Only one of the four tyrosines could be burned. As an application we present pressure tuning experiments from which the local compressibility around the burned tyrosine probe is determined.