Molecular mobility of a fluorescent probe in binding sites of an albumin molecule

Abstract

The molecular mobility of the fluorescent probe, N-(carboxymethyl)imide of 4-(dimethylamino)naphthalic acid (K-35) in three types of binding sites on a human serum albumin (HSA) molecule has been studied. The time-resolved decay of K-35 polarized fluorescence in HSA has been studied and it has been shown that probe molecules bound to different sites have different fluorescence decay time, which poses problems in the interpretation of polarization decay. However, it has been found that, in the case of rather slow thermal rotation of the probe, the decay of each of vertical and horizontal polarized fluorescence components can be approximated by three exponentials corresponding to three types of binding sites. The mobility of the probe in different sites was estimated. The mobility was different but hindered by tens of times in all sites as compared with the rotation of K-35 in water. The slowest motion occurred in the sites of the first type localized in the region of the well known first drug-binding site: here the rotational correlation was close to 72 ns or more. In the sites of the second type, the time was about 40 ns, and in the sites of the third type, the time was about 10 ns. It was found that the higher the rotation rate, the higher the fluorescence quenching rate. Probably, it is this motion that is responsible for different fluorescence decay times in different HSA sites.