The aim of the work was to determine the interactions of a set of anti-cancer compounds with bovine serum albumin (BSA) using a ProteOn XPR36 array biosensor and molecular docking studies. The results revealed that a total of six anti-cancer compounds: gallic acid, doxorubicin, acteoside, salvianolic acid B, echinacoside, and vincristine were able to reversibly bind to the immobilized BSA. The sensorgrams of these six compounds were globally fit to a Langmuir 1:1 interaction model for binding kinetics analysis. There were significant differences in their affinity for BSA, with doxorubicin, the weakest binding compound having 1000-fold less affinity than salvianolic acid B, the strongest binding compound. However, compounds with a similar KD often exhibited markedly different kinetics due to the differences in ka and kd. Molecular docking experiments demonstrated that acteoside was partially located within sub-domain IIA of BSA, whereas gallic acid bound to BSA deep within its sub-domain IIIA. In addition, the interactions between these compounds and BSA were dominated by hydrophobic forces and hydrogen bonds. Understanding the detailed information of these anti-cancer compounds can provide important insights into optimizing the interactions and activity of potential compounds during drug development.
Keywords: compounds/BSA interaction; kinetics; molecular docking; surface plasmon resonance.