A new fluorescent reagent, N-mercuric jV-dansylcysteine, has been developed which can be used both to estimate sulfhydryl groups and to label proteins. The reagent reacts readily with small molecules and proteins to form mercury-bridged mercaptides with extremely high association constants. For small molecules, the fluorescence of the attached label is enhanced 2X without spectral shift, while larger enhancements (2.8, 7, and 20X) and spectral shifts (5, 13, and 20 nm) are observed when the label is bound to the muscle pro-The labeling of proteins with fluorescent molecules has been a useful approach for the study of protein structure and interactions. In order to obtain maximum information from such studies, however, it is desirable to have labels that can be conveniently attached to specific sites on the surface of the protein under conditions which will not alter the protein's native properties.A large number of SH-directed reagents have been developed in recent years which satisfy these requirements to varying degrees. A partial listing of these includes didansylcystine (Wu and Stryer, 1972; Cheung et al., 1971), the iodoacetamide naphthylaminesulfonates (I-AEDANS)1 (Hudson and Weber, 1973), dansylaziridine (Scouten et al., 1974), the fluorescein derivatives: difluorescein cystine (Wu and Stryer, 1972; Bunting and , fluorescein mercuric acetate (Karush et al., 1964; Heitz and Anderson, 1968), and mercurichrome (Weltman et al., 1972); 7-chloro-4-nitrobenzo-2-oxa-1,3-diazole (NBD-chloride) (Birkett et Allen and Lowe. 1973), N-( 1 -anilinonaphthyl-4)-maleimide (ANM) (Kanaoka et al., 1973), A'-(p-(2-benzimidazolyl)phenyl)maleimide (BIPM) (Kanaoka et al., 1970), and pyrenemaleimide (Weltman et al., 1973).While most of these compounds have proved useful in the study of some protein systems, disadvantages such as limited solubility in aqueous solutions (dansylaziridine, ANM, pyrene-