Interaction of perfluorooctanoic acid with human serum albumin.

ABSTRACT: BACKGROUND: Recently, perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA) has become a significant issue in many aspects of environmental ecology, toxicology, pathology and life sciences because it may have serious effects on the endocrine, immune and nervous systems and can lead to embryonic deformities and other diseases. Human serum albumin (HSA) is the major protein component of blood plasma and is called a multifunctional plasma carrier protein because of its ability to bind an unusually broad spectrum of ligands.

RESULTS: The interaction of PFOA with Human serum Albumin was investigated in the normal physiological condition by equilibrium dialysis, fluorospectrometry, isothermal titration calorimetry (ITC) and circular dichroism (CD). The non-covalent interaction is resulted from hydrogen bond, van der Waals force e and hydrophobic stack. PFOA binding to Human Serum Albumin accorded with two-step binding model with the saturation binding numbers of PFOA, only 1 in the hydrophobic intracavity of Human Serum Albumin and 12 on the exposed outer surface. The interaction of PFOA with Human Serum Albumin is spontaneous and results in change of HSA conformation. The possible binding sites were speculated.

CONCLUSION: The present work suggested a characterization method for the intermolecular weak interaction. It is potentially useful for elucidating the toxigenicity of perfluorochemicals when combined w: BMC Struct Biol. 2009 May 14;9(1):31.ith biomolecular function effect, transmembrane transport, toxicological testing and the other experiments.Latest on Albumin Research, clinical diagnostic albumin research, latest albumin technology