Study on the interaction of the epilepsy drug, zonisamide with human serum albumin (HSA) by spectroscopic and molecular docking techniques

•There is evidence of conformation changes of HSA induced by its interaction with zonisamide drug.•We conclude that, the drug binds to HSA with a high affinity and transport in the body.•Molecular docking also indicated that zonisamide could strongly bind to the site I (subdomain IIA) of HSA.

In the present investigation, an attempt has been made to study the interaction of zonisamide (ZNS) with the transport protein, human serum albumin (HSA) employing UV–Vis, fluorometric, circular dichroism (CD) and molecular docking techniques. The results indicated that binding of ZNS to HSA caused strong fluorescence quenching of HSA through static quenching mechanism, hydrogen bonds and van der Waals contacts are the major forces in the stability of protein ZNS complex and the process of the binding of ZNS with HSA was driven by enthalpy (ΔH = −193.442 kJ mol−1). The results of CD and UV–Vis spectroscopy showed that the binding of this drug to HSA induced conformational changes in HSA. Furthermore, the study of molecular docking also indicated that zonisamide could strongly bind to the site I (subdomain IIA) of HSA mainly by hydrophobic interaction and there were hydrogen bond interactions between this drug and HSA, also known as the warfarin binding site.

Graphical abstractIn this study, an attempt has been made to study the interaction of zonisamide with human serum albumin (HSA) employing UV–vis, fluorometric, circular dichroism (CD) and molecular docking techniques.Figure optionsDownload full-size imageDownload as PowerPoint slide