Study on the interaction of Co (III) DiAmsar with serum albumins: Spectroscopic and molecular docking methods

•We synthesize and characterize the Co (III) DiAmsar complex.•We study the interaction of Co (III) DiAmsar with HSA and BSA.•We calculate the ΔG parameter of interaction at different temperatures.

This study was designed to examine the interaction of cobalt-3,6,10,13,16,19-hexaazabicyclo[6.6.6]eicosane-1,8-diamine (Co(III) DiAmsar) as a hexadentate ligand with human serum albumin (HSA) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) under physiological conditions in Tris–HCl buffer solution at pH 7.4. To this aim, at first, Co (III) DiAmsar was synthesized and characterized by nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR), and mass spectroscopy and then its interaction with HSA and BSA was investigated by means of various spectroscopic methods (Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR), UV–visible (UV–vis), fluorescence, and cyclic voltammetry (CV)) and molecular docking technique. The results of fluorescence titration revealed that the Co (III) DiAmsar strongly quench the intrinsic fluorescence of HSA and BSA through a static quenching procedure. Binding constants (Ka) and the number of binding sites (n ∼ 1) were calculated using Stern–Volmer equations. The ΔG parameters at different temperatures were calculated. Subsequently, the values of ΔH and ΔS were also calculated, which revealed that the van der Waals and hydrogen bonding interaction splay a major role in Co (III) DiAmsar-HSA and Co (III) DiAmsar-BSA associations. The distance r between donor (HSA and BSA) and acceptor (Co (III) DiAmsar) was obtained according to fluorescence resonance energy transfer. The data obtained by the molecular modeling study revealed the surrounding residues of HSA and BSA around Co (III) DiAmsar.

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