Interaction of ANS with human serum albumin under confinement: Important insights and relevance

Human serum albumin (HSA) has been extensively studied over the years not only as a model protein but also as an important small molecule carrier with its ability to bind a variety of ligands. This study focuses on the modulation in the conformational disposition of HSA within the confinement of water pools of AOT reverse micelles, and its interactions with 1-anilinonapthelenesulfonate (ANS), the latter serving as a drug moiety. Circular dichroism studies show that while on one hand the incorporation of the protein in the reverse micelles leads to significant distortion in its secondary structure, however, at the same time, addition of ANS leads to a marked increase in helicity of HSA. A combination of FRET studies, time resolved anisotropy measurements and global analyses of temperature dependent spectra reveal little or no significant interaction between HSA and ANS inside the AOT water pools, this being expected, based on the observed distortion of the protein secondary structure on reverse micelle entrapment (the latter resulting in disruption of the binding pockets available to ANS). Taken together our data show possible insights into how HSA releases its bound species (when interacting with membranes or charged confined spaces) and thereby remains a viable drug carrier.