Sulfonated compounds have been used as biological staining reagents for some time. However, only recently it has been realized that some of these compounds can exhibit diverse biological activities (1-5) and hence are looked upon as potential pharmaceutical agents and important lead compounds (6 -8). The effectiveness of these compounds as pharmaceutical agents depends on their ability to reach and bind to the specific sites on the target proteins. Albumins are the principal proteins found in plasma contributing to the colloid osmotic pressure of the blood and also act as transport proteins for numerous endogenous and exogenous compounds (9). These have propensity to bind a wide variety of ligands. Because of this, albumins are assumed to function as transport protein and possibly serve as vehicles for regulating levels of drugs and metabolites in blood (10).The mode of interaction of various sulfonated azo compounds including 7-hydroxy-8-(phenylazo)1,3-naphthelenedisulfonate, commonly known as Orange G (OG) 1 (Fig. 1B) with amino acids such as Arg, Lys, and His has been reported (11). To the best of our knowledge, there is no report on the interaction of OG with any protein. Detailed knowledge of the OG-albumin interaction is relevant to the understanding of interaction of sulfonated azo dyes with enzymes and with specific binding proteins. We have therefore undertaken detailed investigations on the mode of interaction of OG and plasma protein called bovine plasma albumin (BPA).In this report, we have characterized BPA⅐OG complex using a variety of spectroscopic techniques such as nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), circular dichroism (CD), fluorescence, etc. In addition, the conformation of BPA and of OG in BPA⅐OG complex is discussed.
EXPERIMENTAL PROCEDURESMaterials-Bovine plasma albumin was purchased from Armour Pharmaceutical Co. and Orange G from Sigma. Concentration of BPA was determined using molecular mass of 66 kDa and A 279 ϭ 0.667 mg Ϫ1 ml cm Ϫ1 (12) and that of OG using ⑀ 478 ϭ 19900 M Ϫ1 cm
Ϫ1. Other chemicals used were of AnalaR grade. 20 mM phosphate buffer, pH 7.2, was used. A mixture of acetate and phosphate (20 mM) was used to obtain pH in the range 4 -8.NMR-NMR measurements were carried out on a Varian Unity Plus 600-MHz spectrometer. Chemical shifts were measured with respect to sodium trimethylsilyl-propionate-2,2,3,3-d 4 . One-dimensional spectra were recorded with 16,000 data points, 6499-Hz spectral width, 64 transients, and a 2-s relaxation delay at 25°C. A 200-ms mixing time was used in the nuclear Overhauser effect spectroscopy (NOESY) (13) experiment. For 13 C-T 1 measurements, inversion recovery pulse sequence was incorporated in gradient enhanced heteronuclear single quantum coherence spectroscopy sequence (14). A relaxation time of 3 s was used. The 1 H spin lattice relaxation times (T 1 ) were measured using inversion recovery pulse sequence (15) using 12-s relaxation delay. The solvent resonance was suppressed by irradiation during relaxation delay and recovery time. T 1 was calc...