Spectroscopic studies on the spontaneous assembly of phenosafranin on glycosaminoglycans templates

Spectroscopic studies showed that binding of phenosafranin (PSF) molecules to glycosaminoglycans (GAGs) resulted in the following observations: (i) appearance of a 52.6 nm hypsochromic shift of the visible absorption band; (ii) static quenching of fluorescence from PSF; (iii) induction of strong circular dichroism (CD) signal of PSF. Stoichiometry of the PSF-GAGs complex was determined by spectrophotometric titration, spectrofluorimetric titration and MacIntosh extraction method. These studies demonstrated the formation of the extended helical PSF array aligned on the helical backbone of GAGs templates by electrostatic force, and the dimeric binding mode of PSF to each anionic site was proposed. The comparative studies between PSF-heparin (Hep) and PSF-chondroitin 4-sulfate (CS) complexes revealed that: (i) stoichiometry of PSF-Hep complex was 1.8 times of PSF-CS complex; (ii) Hep was more effective than CS (1.8 times) in decreasing the absorbance of PSF; and (iii) Stern-Volmer constants of the Hep-PSF system were greater than that of the CS-PSF system. These differences were attributed to the different charge density on the Hep and CS molecules, which in turn suggested that the electrostatic force was dominant in the interaction between PSF and GAGs.