Study on the conjugation mechanism of colistin sulfate with bovine serum albumin and effect of the metal ions on the reaction

Colistin sulfate (CS) can quench the fluorescence of bovine serum albumin (BSA) in an aqueous solution at pH 7.40. The static fluorescence-quenching process between BSA and CS was confirmed and the binding constant, the number of binding sites and thermodynamic data for the interaction between BSA and CS were also obtained. Results showed that the order of magnitude of binding constant (K_a) was 10⁴, and the number of binding site (n) in the binary system was approximately equal to 1; electrostatic force played an important role on the conjugation reaction between BSA and CS. On the basis of the Förster theory of the resonance energy transfer, the binding distance (r) between CS and BSA was less than 7 nm. Comparing the quenching of protein fluorescence excited at 280 nm and 295 nm and from the site marker replacement experiments, it was shown that the primary CS binding site was located in the sub-domain IIA (site I) of BSA. Synchronous fluorescence spectra clearly revealed that the binding of CS with BSA can induce conformation changes in BSA. In addition, the effects of common metal ions on the binding constants of CS–BSA complex were also discussed. It was shown that, except Cu²⁺, the high metal ion concentrations improved the CS efficacy.