Chemiluminescence detection coupled to high-performance frontal analysis for the determination of unbound concentrations of drugs in protein binding equilibrium

High-performance frontal analysis coupled with chemiluminescence detection (HPFA-CL) was developed for the determination of unbound oxacillin concentration in human serum albumin solution. The HPFA system consisted of an ISRP column and a mobile phase of 67 mM potassium phosphate buffer of pH 7.4 and ionic strength of 0.17. The luminol-H2O2-Co2+ system was used in the chemiluminescence detection. An enhancement of luminol chemiluminescence by oxacillin was investigated and employed for determining the concentration of oxacillin in the HPFA eluate. Sample solutions were directly injected onto the column; the drug was eluted as a zonal peak with a plateau region. The unbound drug concentrations were determined by using the height of the plateau. The results agreed with those obtained with conventional ultrafiltration-HPLC method. Good reproducibility was confirmed by the within run and between run RSD < or = 7.4%. HPFA-CL provided a selective method for determination of unbound drug concentration in protein binding equilibrium.     

Simple and Rapid Hollow Fiber Liquid Phase Microextraction Followed by High Performance Liquid Chromatography Method for Determination of Drug-protein Binding

A method was established using hollow fiber-liquid phase microextraction(HF-LPME) followed by high performance liquid chromatography(HPLC) to determine the concentration of the free(unbound) drug in the solution of the drug and protein. Measurements of drug-protein binding ratios and free drug concentrations were then analyzed with the Klotz equation to determine the equilibrium binding constant and number of binding sites for drug-protein interaction. The optimized method allows one to perform the efficient extraction and separation of free drug from protein-bound drug, protein, and other interfering substances. This approach was used to characterize the binding of the anticholinergic drugs atropine sulfate and scopolamine hydrobromide to proteins in human plasma and bovine serum albumin(BSA). The results demonstrate the utility of HF-LPME method for measuring free drug concentrations in protein-drug mixtures and determining the protein binding parameters of a pharmacologically important class of drugs.     

High-throughput screening of protein binding by equilibrium dialysis combined with liquid chromatography and mass spectrometry

A new approach for screening plasma protein binding is presented. The method is based on equilibrium dialysis combined with rapid generic LC-MS bioanalysis by using a sample pooling approach enabling high-throughput screening of protein binding in the drug discovery phase. The method is evaluated by a comparison of measured unbound free fractions f(u) (%) between single and pooled compounds for a test set of structurally diverse compounds with a wide range of unbound fractions. Test compounds include 1 acidic and 10 basic drug standards along with 36 new chemical entities. A good correlation (R2>0.95) of f(u) (%) between the single and pooled compounds is found, suggesting that at least 10 compounds can be simultaneously measured with acceptable accuracy. A simplified drug-protein binding model is applied to calculate the f(u) (%) of drugs at various drug and protein concentrations and this is applied to elucidate the applicability of the sample pooling approach from a theoretical standpoint. Moreover, pH shifts in the plasma were observed after dialysis when using different types of buffers and the impact of that on the f(u) is illustrated in association with their physicochemical properties, in particular the ionization state of compounds by the profile of effective mobility as a function of pH. A new buffer is proposed being able to minimize the pH shift of plasma during the dialysis. In addition, the application of the proposed buffer does not necessarily require adjusting plasma pH before the dialysis and utilizing a CO2 incubator during the dialysis. The effect of the ionic strengths of different buffers on MS signals is investigated with regard to ion suppression. The sample pooling method not only significantly reduces the plasma volume required but also the number of bioanalysis samples as compared to the single compound measurements by a conventional approach. The new proposed approach is especially beneficial for measuring in vitro protein binding in matrices such as mouse plasma where plasma is available only in limited amounts. The current new development will facilitate the drug discovery process by more rapidly assessing the protein binding potential of drug candidates.     

Application of hollow fiber-supported liquid-phase microextraction coupled with HPLC for the determination of guaifenesin enantiomer-protein binding

A hollow fiber liquid-phase microextraction technique coupled with high-performance liquid chromatography with fluorescence detection was employed for determination and evaluation of the binding characteristics of drugs to bovine serum albumin (BSA). Enantiomers of guaifenesin (an expectorant drug) were investigated as a model system. After optimization of some influencing parameters on microextraction, the proposed method was used for calculation of the target drug distribution coefficient between n-octanol and the buffer solution as well as study of drug-BSA binding in physiological conditions. The developed method shows a new, improved and simple procedure for determination of free drug concentration in biological fluids and the extent of drug-protein binding.     

高效迎头分析法测定药物-人血清白蛋白混合液中游离药物浓度

 用高效迎头分析法 (HPFA)测定了药物 人血清白蛋白 (HSA)混合液中游离药物的浓度。样品溶液不经任何处理直接进样到装有内表面反相固定相的色谱柱中 ,用 67mmol/L磷酸盐缓冲液 ( pH 7 4 ,I =0 17mol/L)作流动相。当进样体积足够大时 ,游离药物以平顶峰的形式被洗脱出来 ,平顶峰区域洗脱液中的药物浓度等于样品溶液中游离药物的浓度。收集平顶峰区域的洗脱液 ,然后将一定体积的洗脱液注入到反相色谱柱中 ,测定游离药物的浓度。用该法测定酮基布洛芬 HSA和头孢哌酮 HSA两种混合液中游离药物的浓度。     

色谱技术在药物-血浆蛋白相互作用研究中的应用进展

小分子药物进入人体血液循环系统后与人血清白蛋白(HSA)、α₁ -酸性糖蛋白(AGP)等血浆蛋白存在广泛的相互作用,这些相互作用深刻影响药物在体内的分布及其与靶标蛋白的结合,进而影响药物效应的发挥。深入探究药物与血浆蛋白间的相互作用对于候选药物的成药性优化、新药研发、联合用药的风险评控等意义重大。而发展高效、灵敏、准确的分析检测方法是开展药物-血浆蛋白相互作用研究的关键。近年来,色谱技术由于其高通量、高分离性能、高灵敏度等特点在该领域得到了广泛的应用,包括测定血浆蛋白翻译后修饰对药物结合的影响,多种药物的竞争性结合等。其中,高效亲和色谱(HPAC)和毛细管电泳(CE)应用最为广泛,能够通过多种分析方法获取结合常数、结合位点数、解离速率常数等相互作用信息。该文着重综述了HPAC和CE在药物-血浆蛋白相互作用研究中的常用策略及最新研究进展,包括HPAC中常用的前沿色谱法、竞争洗脱法、超快亲和提取法、峰值分析法和峰衰减分析法,以及CE中常用的亲和毛细管电泳法(ACE)和毛细管电泳前沿分析法(CE-FA)等。最后,该文还对当前色谱方法存在的不足进行了总结,并对色谱技术在药物-血浆蛋白相互作用研究领域的应用前景和发展方向进行了展望。     

高效前沿分析的发展及在药物-蛋白结合研究中的应用

介绍了高效前沿分析方法的原理、特点、种类，综述了它在药物与蛋白结合研究中的应用及国内外研究概况；通过与高效液相色谱／前沿分析比较，阐明了毛细管电泳／前沿分析在药物蛋白结合研究中的优势；分析了在药物与蛋白结合研究中所采用的各种研究方法，通过与这些研究方法的比较，阐明了高效前沿分析的优越性及其广阔的应用前景，同时提出了在高效前沿分析方法中有待完善和注意的问题。     

An automated flow-injection serial dynamic dialysis technique for drug-protein binding studies

An automated flow-injection analyzer is interfaced with a dialysis unit to study drug-protein protein binding interactions. The binding of some sulfonamides to bovine serum albumin is studied by means of the automated system and gives results similar to those obtained by other procedures. A usual time for a complete run is 100 min, including calibration. The dialysable sulfonamides are quantified spectrophotometrically by using a modified Bratton-Marshall method. The system is also used for the calculation of dialysis rate constants.     

Non-equilibrium capillary electrophoresis of equilibrium mixtures--appreciation of kinetics in capillary electrophoresis

We describe a new electrophoretic method (patent pending), Non-Equilibrium Capillary Electrophoresis of Equilibrium Mixtures (NECEEM), and demonstrate its application to the study of protein-DNA interactions. A single NECEEM experiment allows for the determination of equilibrium and kinetic parameters of protein-DNA complex formation. The equilibrium mixture is prepared by mixing protein and DNA; it contains three components: free protein, free DNA, and the protein-DNA complex. A small plug of such a mixture is injected onto a capillary and the three components are separated under non-equilibrium conditions using a run buffer that does not contain the components of the equilibrium mixture. The protein-DNA complex decays during the NECEEM separation; the resulting electropherograms contain characteristic peaks and exponential curves. A simple analysis of a single electropherogram reveals two parameters: the equilibrium dissociation constant of the protein-DNA complex and the monomolecular rate constant of complex decay. The bimolecular rate constant of complex formation can then be calculated as the ratio of the two experimentally-determined constants. NECEEM was applied to find the equilibrium and kinetic parameters of interaction between an E. coli single-stranded DNA binding protein and a fluorescently-labeled oligonucleotide. The constants determined by NECEEM are in good agreement with those obtained by other methods. The new method is simple, fast, and accurate. It can be equally applied to other non-covalent molecular complexes.     

Development of a multiplex non-radioactive receptor assay: the benzodiazepine receptor, the serotonin transporter and the beta-adrenergic receptor

Binding assays still form a fundamental part of modern drug development. Receptor binding assays are mostly based on radioactivity because of their speed, ease of use and reproducibility. Disadvantages, such as health hazards and production of radioactive waste, have prompted the development of non-radioactive receptor binding assays. This application therefore focuses on measuring receptor-ligand interactions using mass spectrometry. Moreover, the novelty of this approach originates in determining multiple analytes in a single assay (multiplexing). The proof of principle of a non-radioactive multiplex receptor assay is demonstrated using a pool of receptors from rat cortical tissue with flunitrazepam, MADAM and pindolol in one vial with or without their respective displacers. Flunitrazepam, MADAM and pindolol bound specifically at 73%, 30% and 40% to their respective receptors. This corresponds to specific binding sites of 0.61 pmol/mg protein, 0.07 pmol/mg protein and 0.06 pmol/mg protein, respectively. We propose to measure the bound fraction instead of the free fraction in order to reach a significant difference in measured signals (total binding versus non-specific binding). The bound fraction can be obtained after dissociating the ligand from the receptor-ligand complex using 50% methanol in water. The current setup of the assay calls for further improvement with respect to the measurement of binding constants for a multitude of receptors in one assay with sufficient accuracy and precision.     

Sequential injection affinity chromatography utilizing an albumin immobilized monolithic column to study drug-protein interactions

In this study, sequential injection affinity chromatography was used for drug-protein interactions studies. The analytical system used consisted of a sequential injection analysis (SIA) manifold directly connected with convective interaction media (CIM) monolithic epoxy disks modified by ligand-immobilization of protein. A non-steroidal, anti-inflammatory drug, naproxen (NAP) and bovine serum albumin (BSA) were selected as model drug and protein, respectively. The SIA system was used for sampling, introduction and propulsion of drug towards to the monolithic column. Association equilibrium constants, binding capacity at various temperatures and thermodynamic parameters (free energy DeltaG, enthalpy DeltaH) of the binding reaction of naproxen are calculated by using frontal analysis mathematics. The variation of incubation time and its effect in on-line binding mode was also studied. The results indicated that naproxen had an association equilibrium constant of 2.90 x 10(6)M(-1) at pH 7.4 and 39 degrees C for a single binding site. The associated change in enthalpy (DeltaH) was -27.36 kcal mol(-1) and the change in entropy (DeltaS) was -73 cal mol(-1)K(-1) for a single type of binding sites. The location of the binding region was examined by competitive binding experiments using a biphosphonate drug, alendronate (ALD), as a competitor agent. It was found that the two drugs occupy the same class of binding sites on BSA. All measurements were performed with fluorescence (lambda(ext)=230 nm, lambda(em)=350 nm) and spectrophotometric detection (lambda=280 nm).     

Simultaneous determination of the free and total carbamazepine concentrations in human plasma by high-performance frontal analysis using an internal-surface reversed-phase silica support

High-performance frontal analysis (HPFA) was applied to simultaneous determinations of the free and total carbamazepine (CBZ) concentrations in human plasma. When 1.5ml of human plasma containing CBZ at a clinical therapeutic level (free fraction, about 30%) was directly injected into an internal-surface reversed-phase silica column, the CBZ was separated from the plasma blank and was eluted as a zonal peak with a plateau height corresponding to the free CBZ concentration in protein binding equilibrium. Slow and continuous introduction of the plasma sample and the use of titanium filters permitted us to inject the sample repeatedly while avoiding a rapid increase in column pressure. The free and total CBZ concentrations were determined simultaneously from the peak height at the plateau region and the area of the CBZ peak, respectively. The within-run and day-to-day reproducibilities were satisfactory (C.V. less than or equal to 1.63%, n = 5).     

Specific determination of unbound oxacillin in protein solution with cefoperazone by high-performance frontal analysis with chemiluminescence detection

Unbound oxacillin concentrations in human serum albumin (HSA) solutions in the presence or absence of cefoperazone were determined using high-performance frontal analysis coupled with chemiluminescence detection (HPFA-CL). The HPFA was performed on an ISRP column with 67 mM potassium phosphate buffer of pH 7.4 and ionic strength of 0.17 as the mobile phase. The luminol-H(2)O(2)-Co(2+) system was employed in the chemiluminescence detection. The detection was highly specific for oxacillin in the presence of cefoperazone. Although both drugs in HSA solutions co-eluted in the same region in HPFA, cefoperazone did not interfere with the determination of unbound concentration of oxacillin. In the solution of 100 microM HSA and 11.33 micro M oxacillin the bound percentage of oxacillin to HSA was estimated as 80.5%. Addition of 30.98 micro M cefoperazone into the HSA-equilibrated solution produced little effect on the protein binding of oxacillin. In the presence of 154.9 micro M cefoperazone, however, the bound percentage of oxacillin was significantly reduced. This specific method could be applied to the investigation of drug-drug interaction in protein binding.     

Quantification of protein-ligand interactions by mass spectrometry,titration, and H/D exchange: PLIMSTEX

Protein-ligand binding and the concomitant conformational change in the protein are of crucial importance in biophysics and drug design. We report a novel method to quantify protein-ligand interactions in solution by mass spectrometry, titration, and H/D exchange (PLIMSTEX). The approach can determine the conformational change, binding stoichiometry, and affinity in protein-ligand interactions including those that involve small molecules, metal ions, and peptides. Binding constants obtained by PLIMSTEX for four model protein-ligand systems agree with K values measured by conventional methods. At higher protein concentration, the method can be used to determine quickly the binding stoichiometry and possibly the purity of proteins. Taking advantage of concentrating the protein on-column and desalting, we are able to use different concentrations of proteins, buffer systems, salts, and pH in the exchange protocol. High picomole quantities of proteins are sufficient, offering significantly better sensitivity than that of NMR and X-ray crystallography. Automation could make PLIMSTEX a high throughput method for library screening, drug discovery, and proteomics.     

A deconvolution method for the separation of specific versus nonspecific interactions in noncovalent protein-ligand complexes analyzed by ESI-FT-ICR mass spectrometry

A method to separate specific and nonspecific noncovalent interactions observed in ESI mass spectra between a protein and its ligands is presented. Assuming noncooperative binding, the specific ligand binding is modeled as a statistical distribution on identical binding sites. For the nonspecific fraction we assume a statistical distribution on a large number of "nonspecific" interacting sites. The model was successfully applied to the noncovalent interaction between the protein creatine kinase (CK) and its ligands adenosine diphosphate (ADP) and adenosine triphosphate (ATP) that both exhibit nonspecific binding in the mass spectrum. The two sequential dissociation constants obtained by applying our method are K(1,diss) = 11.8 +/- 1.5 microM and K(2,diss) = 48 +/- 6 microM for ADP. For ATP, the constants are K(1,diss) = 27 +/- 7 microM and K(2,diss) = 114 +/- 27 microM. All constants are in good correlation with reported literature values. The model should be valuable for systems with a large dissociation constant that require high ligand concentrations and thus have increased potential of forming nonspecific adducts.     

Kernel-based data fusion improves the drug-protein interaction prediction

Proteins are involved in almost every action of every organism by interacting with other small molecules including drugs. Computationally predicting the drug-protein interactions is particularly important in speeding up the process of developing novel drugs. To borrow the information from existing drug-protein interactions, we need to define the similarity among proteins and the similarity among drugs. Usually these similarities are defined based on one single data source and many methods have been proposed. However, the availability of many genomic and chemogenomic data sources allows us to integrate these useful data sources to improve the predictions. Thus a great challenge is how to integrate these heterogeneous data sources. Here, we propose a kernel-based method to predict drug-protein interactions by integrating multiple types of data. Specially, we collect drug pharmacological and therapeutic effects, drug chemical structures, and protein genomic information to characterize the drug-target interactions, then integrate them by a kernel function within a support vector machine (SVM)-based predictor. With this data fusion technology, we establish the drug-protein interactions from a collections of data sources. Our new method is validated on four classes of drug target proteins, including enzymes, ion channels (ICs), G-protein couple receptors (GPCRs), and nuclear receptors (NRs). We find that every single data source is predictive and integration of different data sources allows the improvement of accuracy, i.e., data integration can uncover more experimentally observed drug-target interactions upon the same levels of false positive rate than single data source based methods. The functional annotation analysis indicates that our new predictions are worthy of future experimental validation. In conclusion, our new method can efficiently integrate diverse data sources, and will promote the further research in drug discovery.     

Rapid determination of protein binding constant by a pressure-mediated affinity capillary electrophoresis method

A new pressure-mediated affinity capillary electrophoresis method for the rapid and accurate determination of drug-protein binding constants is described. A special combination of pressure and electrophoresis is used to shorten the electrophoresis and the overall analysis time to only a few minutes. At the same time, the suitability of this method is checked against a traditional fluorescence spectroscopy method. The binding constants of bovine serum albumin and a total of eight drugs with different pK(a) have been evaluated and compared with those determined by the fluorescence spectroscopy method and other methods in literature. The results indicate that the P-ACE method is well suited for the determination of binding constants with weak interaction (K(b) <10(5) M(-1)).     

Modification of the thermal unfolding pathways of myoglobin upon drug interaction in different aqueous media

In this work, we have analyzed the influence of two structurally related phenothiazine drugs, promazine and triflupromazine hydrochlorides, when bound to myoglobin, a model protein, and how the drug concentration and solution conditions may affect the denaturation process of this protein. In this manner, we derive the thermodynamic quantities of the unfolding process by using a spectroscopic technique such as UV-vis spectroscopy at different drugs concentrations and at pH 2.5, 5.5, and 9.0. To do this, a thermodynamic model was used which included experimental data corresponding to the pre- and post-transition into the observable transition. It has been found that both drugs play a destabilizing role for the protein, at least at low concentrations. In addition, at acidic pH and higher drug concentrations, a stabilizing effect can be observed, which may be related to the formation of some type of protein refolding, subsequent aggregation, or both. The reason for this behavior has been suggested to be the different protein conformations at acidic pH, the increase of solvent-exposed hydrophobic and hydrophilic residues after denaturation and/or binding, and the different strength of drug-protein interactions when changing the solution conditions. For this reason, thermodynamic quantities such as Gibbs energies, DeltaG, and entropies of unfolding, DeltaS(m), increase as the solution pH increases provided that additional solvent-exposed hydrophobic residues are present, which were previously buried at room temperature. Moreover, the larger binding affinity at pH 9.0 due to enhanced electrostatic interactions between protein and drug molecules (drug and protein differ in their net electrical charge) additionally collaborates to this residue exposition to solvent as a consequence of the alteration of protein conformation as due to drug binding. Comparison of thermodynamic data between promazine and triflupromazine hydrochlorides also shows that drug-protein affinity and hydrophobicity also affect the thermodynamic denaturation parameters.     

Gaining an insight into the photoreactivity of a drug in a protein environment: a case study on nalidixic acid and serum albumin

The binding of nalidixic acid (NA) with human and bovine serum albumin (HSA and BSA) in buffer solution at pH 7.4 was investigated using circular dichroism (CD), UV absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy. Global analysis of multiwavelength spectroscopic data afforded the equilibrium constants of the most stable noncovalent drug/protein adducts of 1:1 and 2:1 stoichiometry and their individual CD, UV absorption, and fluorescence spectra. The primary binding site of the drug was located in subdomain IIIA (Sudlow Site II), whereas the secondary one was assigned to subdomain IIA. Conformational and CD calculations afforded the binding geometries. In the complexes, the fluorescence of the protein was strongly quenched by energy transfer and that of the drug was suppressed by electron transfer. Laser flash photolysis at 355 nm evidenced the formation of a radical pair consisting of a tyroxyl radical (lambdamax = 410 nm) and a reduced nalidixate anion radical NA(2-)* (lambdamax = 640 nm) with quantum yield of 0.4-0.5. Strong evidence was obtained that the process that involves Tyr411 in HSA (Tyr409 in BSA). A further transient with lambdamax approximately 780 nm observed in HSA was attributed to oxidation of the -(S200-S246)- bridge upon electron transfer to NA(-)*. Decay of the confined radical pairs occurred with rates approximately 10(7) s(-1). Formation of covalent drug-protein adducts in mixtures irradiated at lambdairr> 324 nm was proved using HPLC with fluorescence detection.     

人血清白蛋白与手性药物相互作用的毛细管电泳研究Ⅱ.药物对映体竞争结合参数的测定

 运用毛细管电泳（CE）技术,在对碱性药物Verapamil（VER）手性拆分的基础上对Verapamil与人血清白蛋白（HSA）平行体系进行了相互作用研究。通过定量HSA－VER体系中VER对映体的浓度,建立对映体对结合位点竞争的理论方程,获得了R和S型药物对映体与HSA的结合常数,其值分别为K（R）-VER=2．7×103×（±4．4×102）和K（S）-VER=8．5×102（±1.0×102）。实验证实,HSA具有手性选择性,与（R）－VER的结合强于与（S）-VER的结合,结合比随着HSA与（±）VER的浓度比而变化。