Mechanistic and conformational studies on the interaction of anti-inflammatory drugs, isoxicam and tenoxicam with bovine serum albumin

The mechanism of interaction of the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, isoxicam (IXM) and tenoxicam (TXM) with bovine serum albumin (BSA) has been studied using spectroscopic techniques, viz., spectrofluorescence, circular dichroism (CD), UV-visible absorption and FT-IR under simulative physiological conditions. Stern-Volmer analysis of fluorescence quenching data shows the presence of the static quenching mechanism. Thermodynamic parameters (negative ΔH⁰ and positive ΔS⁰ values obtained in the present study) revealed that the hydrophobic interactions played a major role in the interaction of these drugs with BSA. The distance, r between the donor (BSA) and acceptor (IXM/TXM) was calculated based on the Forster’s theory of non-radiation energy transfer and the values were observed to be 3.85 nm and 2.60 nm in IXM-BSA and TXM-BSA system, respectively. CD and FT-IR studies indicated that the binding of IXM/TXM to BSA induced conformational changes in BSA. The effect of common ions on the binding of IXM/TXM to BSA has been investigated.