The Raman linewidths of the carbon-halogen stretching mode was measured as a function of temperature in ethyl bromide, isopropyl chloride, isopropyl bromide, t-butyl chloride, t-butyl bromide, chlorobenzene, bromobenzene, iodobenzene and o-dichlorobenzene. The vibrational relaxation times showed a very clear trend. Together with earlier work on methyl iodide, these results provide evidence that the vibrational dephasing efficiencies (T^-1_iso) of the carbon-halogen mode vary in the order of Cl > Br > I. Vibrational dephasing times were calculated from the Fischer-Laubereau Isolated Binary Collision Mode. If further work shows this transferability to extend to other types of skeletal modes in molecular systems, this would have significant ramifications on future vibrational lineshape studies.

The objectives of these investigations were (1) the purification of MG reductase from sheep liver and (2) studies of some of its characteristics. MG reductase was purified 40 fold and showed a single band on SDS-PAGE. Molecular weight estimations with SDS-PAGE showed a molecular weight of 44,000; although gel filtration with Sephadex G-150 gave a molecular weight of 87,000 indicating that the enzyme might be a dimer. The Km for MG is 1.42 mM and for NADH it is 0.04 mM. The pH optimum for the purified enzyme is pH 7.0. Isoelectric focusing experiments showed a pI of 9.3. In vivo experiments involving rats treated with 3,3',5-triiodothyronine (T_3) and 6-n-propyl-2-thiouracil (PTU) indicated that MG reductase was depressed by T_3 and elevated by PTU.