Study of interactions between oppositely charged dendrigraft poly-L-lysine and human serum albumin by continuous frontal analysis capillary electrophoresis and fluorescence spectroscopy.

Dendrigraft poly-L-lysine (DGL) are biomacromolecules of great interest for many applications including antibacterial activity, drug delivery systems, gene therapy and production of antibodies. As human serum albumin (HSA) is the most abundant serum protein, the study of interactions between these two compounds is crucial for the use of DGL in drug or gene delivery systems. The present work aims at determining the number of binding sites and the corresponding successive equilibrium constants between DGL of generation 3 (G3) and HSA in physiological conditions. To meet this end, continuous frontal analysis capillary electrophoresis (FACCE) and fluorescence spectroscopic methods were implemented and compared. FACCE was performed on a polycationic modified capillary in combination with a co-pressure that allowed for selectively introducing the free G3 from the G3/HSA mixtures. FACCE studies demonstrated that HSA has 2 binding sites with DGL G3 with the following successive constants K1=31.2×10(3) M(-1) and K2=30.6×10(3) M(-1). For a 1 g/L concentration in G3 and assuming a plasmatic HSA concentration of 40g/L, these binding constants lead to only 5% free DGL in the medium. It was also shown that the interactions between G3 and HSA corresponded to a model of cooperative sites. These results are in good agreement with the presence of two negatively charged domains in the HSA. Good fitting of the fluorescence spectroscopy data was obtained using the equilibrium constants derived from FACCE. Nevertheless, due to the high number of fitting parameters, it was difficult to fit the fluorescence spectroscopic data independently of the results obtained by FACCE.