Elucidation of molecular interaction of bioactive flavonoid luteolin with human serum albumin and its glycated analogue using multi-spectroscopic and computational studies

Human serum albumin (HSA), an abundant protein in human plasma, which is associated with the transportation of numerous drugs, fatty acids to their targets and regulates the blood pH levels, is exposed to non-enzymatic glycation by reducing sugars. The existence of elevated levels of glucose during diabetes mellitus mediates the glycation of HSA which leads to structural and functional modification of the protein. The aim of our present study is to determine the effect of non-enzymatic glycation on the binding of a bioactive flavonoid luteolin to HSA using multi-spectroscopic and computational studies. The intrinsic fluorescence exhibited by the proteins (HSA and gHSA) were quenched by luteolin through static quenching mechanism. The binding constant for the interaction of HSA with luteolin was found higher as compared to that of gHSA-Luteolin at the experimental temperatures (290, 300 and 310 K). The ∆G values for the complexes formed between HSA/gHSA and luteolin were observed to be negative, indicating the spontaneity of the binding processes. Both enthalpy and entropy factors contribute to the binding of luteolin to HSA, whereas, enthalpy factors played a major role in the binding of luteolin to gHSA. A reduction in the α-helical content of HSA-Luteolin complex was observed, but no significant change was found for gHSA-Luteolin complex. Site probe displacement and related binding studies indicated that luteolin binds to both Subdomain IIA and IIIA of HSA and gHSA but with different affinities. Further molecular docking and MD simulation studies confirmed that luteolin preferably binds to the Subdomain IIA of HSA and IIIA of gHSA. These information, in turn, would give a better understanding of the functional changes occurred due to structural modification of HSA induced by glycation and may have some useful impact on the field of pharmaceutical sciences.