Specificity and affinity of phenosafranine protein adduct: Insights from biophysical aspects

Phenosafranine is a toxic and recalcitrant compound, whose capacity to intercalate with double stranded DNA has been shown. In this contribution, a biophysical discuss on the conjugation of phenosafranine with two model proteins human serum albumin (HSA) and lysozyme (Lys) has been identified utilizing a combination of molecular modeling, steady state and time-resolved fluorescence and circular dichroism (CD) approaches. The accurate binding domain of phenosafranine in protein has been characterized from molecular modeling, subdomain IIIA of HSA and Trp-62, Trp-63 and Trp-108 residues of Lys was designated to possess high-affinity for this compound, the dominant forces in the protein–phenosafranine adduct are hydrogen bonds and π–π interactions, but hydrophobic interactions between dye and Lys are also not exclude. The data of fluorescence displayed that the complex of phenosafranine with protein produces quenching through static property, this corroborates the time-resolved fluorescence results that the ground state complex formation with a moderate affinity of 104 M−1. Moreover, via synchronous fluorescence, CD and three-dimensional fluorescence we indicated some extent of polypeptide chain of protein partially unfolding upon conjugation with phenosafranine. Through this work, we anticipate it can supply salient clues on the toxicological action of phenosafranine and other azines, which have analogous configuration with phenosafranine.