Isothermal titration calorimetry for drug design: Precision of the enthalpy and binding constant measurements and comparison of the instruments

Isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) is one of the most robust label- and immobilization-free techniques used to measure protein - small molecule interactions in drug design for the simultaneous determination of the binding affinity (ΔG) and the enthalpy (ΔH), both of which are important parameters for structure-thermodynamics correlations. It is important to evaluate the precision of the method and of various ITC instrument models by performing a single well-characterized reaction. The binding between carbonic anhydrase II and acetazolamide was measured by four ITC instruments - PEAQ-ITC, iTC200, VP-ITC, and MCS-ITC and the standard deviation of ΔG and ΔH was determined. Furthermore, the limit of an approach to reduce the protein concentration was studied for a high-affinity reaction (Kd = 0.3 nM), too tight to be measured by direct (non-displacement) ITC. Chemical validation of the enthalpy measurements is discussed.