Deciphering the complexation process of a fluoroquinolone antibiotic, levofloxacin, with bovine serum albumin in the presence of additives

Abstract

The current work aims to explore the thermodynamic and conformational aspects for the binding of fluoroquinolone antibacterial drug, levofloxacin (LFC), with bovine serum albumin (BSA) using calorimetric, spectroscopic (UV–visible, fluorescence, circular dichroism, and 1H NMR), dynamic light scattering (DLS) and computational methods (molecular docking). The binding of LFC with BSA at two sequential sites with higher affinity (~103M−1) at the first site has been explored by calorimetry whereas the binding at a single site with affinity of the order of ~104M−1 has been observed from fluorescence spectroscopy. The calorimetric study in the presence of additives along with docking analysis reveals the significant role of electrostatic, hydrogen bonding, and hydrophobic interactions in the association process. The slight conformational changes in protein as well as the changes in the water network structure around the binding cavity of protein have been observed from spectroscopic and DLS measurements. The LFC induced quenching of BSA fluorescence was observed to be initiated mainly through the static quenching process and this suggests the formation of ground state LFC-BSA association complex. The stronger interactions of LFC in the cavity of Sudlow site I (subdomain IIA) of protein have been explored from site marker calorimetric and molecular docking study.