Evaluation of dissociation constants from competition binding experiments based on the relative binding ratio

Methods probing protein–DNA associations include direct binding titrations and competition binding experiments. For the latter, we present here a simple procedure allowing the quantitative evaluation of dissociation constants. We show that the ratio between the fraction of a DNA probe bound to protein in the absence of competitor and that in the presence of competitor is, at large competitor concentrations, a linear function of the competitor concentration, and we derive equations allowing the dissociation constant for the protein–competitor complex to be evaluated from the slope. We show further that a self-competition experiment, where the DNA probe and competitor are chemically the same species, can be used as a complement to a direct titration to determine the fraction of protein that is correctly folded for specific DNA binding. Thus, such a combination of direct and self-competition titration can be used as a check of the conformational purity of DNA binding proteins.