Study of the interaction of kaempferol with bovine serum albumin

The binding of kaempferol with bovine serum albumin (BSA) was investigated at three temperatures, 296, 310 and 318 K, by the fluorescence, circular dichroism (CD) and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR) at pH 7.40. The CD and FT-IR studies indicate that kaempferol binds strongly to BSA. The association constant K was determined by Stern–Volmer equation based on the quenching of the fluorescence BSA in the presence of kaempferol. The thermodynamic parameters were calculated according to the dependence of enthalpy change on the temperature as follows: DH0 and DS0 possess small negative (21.694 kJ/mol) and positive values (88.814 J/mol K), respectively. According to the displacement experimental and the thermodynamic results, it is considered that kaempferol binding site II (subdomain III) mainly by hydrophobic interaction. The results studied by FT-IR and CD experiments indicate that the secondary structures of the protein have been changed by the interaction of kaempferol with BSA. The distance between the tryptophan residues in BSA and kaempferol bound to site II was estimated to be 2.78 nm using Foster’s equation on the basis of fluorescence energy transfer. q 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.