Investigation of human serum albumin (HSA) binding specificity of certain photosensitizers related to pyropheophorbide-a and bacteriopurpurinimide by circular dichroism spectroscopy and its correlation with in vivo photosensitizing efficacy

A series of pyropheophorbide-a and bacteriopurpurinimides were investigated to understand the correlation between HSA (site II) binding affinity and in vivo photosensitizing activity. In our study, photosensitizers that bound to site II of HSA produced a significant difference in the circular dichroism spectra of the corresponding complexes, especially at Soret band region of the photosensitizers. Our results suggest that CD spectroscopy of the photosensitizer–HSA complexes could be a valuable tool in screening new photosensitizers before evaluating them for in vivo efficacy.