Study on the proteins–luminol binding by use of luminol as a fluorescence probe

•The FL intensity of luminol was quenched by myoglobin and other proteins.•The fluorescence quenching mechanism was studied.•A mathematical equation of lg(F0 − F)/F = 1/nlg[P] + 1/nlgKa was first constructed.•The interaction parameters (Ka and n) between luminol and proteins were obtained.

In this paper, a new mathematical equation of lg(F0 − F)/F = 1/nlg[P] + 1/nlgKa, which was used to obtain interaction parameters (the binding constant Ka and the number of binding sites n) between the protein and the small molecule ligand by using the ligand as a fluorescence (FL) probe, was constructed for the first time. The interaction parameters between myoglobin, catalase, lysozyme, bovine serum albumin (BSA) and luminol were obtained by this equation with luminol used as a FL probe, showing that the binding constants Ka were 8.78 × 105, 4.47 × 105, 4.21 × 104 and 3.95 × 104 respectively, and the number of binding sites n approximately equaled to 1.0 for myoglobin, catalase, and 2.0 for lysozyme, BSA. The interactions of ferritin, ovalbumin, aldolase, chymotrypsinogen and ribonuclease with luminol were also studied by this method. The binding constants Ka were at 104–105 level, and the number of binding sites n mostly approximately equaled to 2.0. The binding ability of luminol to the studied proteins followed the pattern: myoglobin > aldolase > ferritin > ovalbumin > catalase > ribonuclease > lysozyme > BSA > chymotrypsinoge.

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