Exploring the interactions of naringenin and naringin with trypsin and pepsin: Experimental and computational...

Naringenin and naringin are two natural compounds with important health benefits, whether as food or drug. It is necessary to study the interactions between naringenin/naringin and digestive proteases, such as trypsin and pepsin. In this study, the bindings of naringenin and naringin to trypsin and pepsin were investigated using multi-spectroscopy analysis and computational modeling approaches. Fluorescence experiments indicate that both naringenin and naringin can quench the intrinsic fluorescence of trypsin/pepsin via static quenching mechanism. Naringin binds trypsin/pepsin in a more firmly way than naringenin. Thermodynamic analysis reveals that the interactions of naringenin/naringin and trypsin/pepsin are synergistically driven by enthalpy and entropy, and the major driving forces are hydrophobic, electrostatic interactions and hydrogen bonding. Synchronous fluorescence spectroscopy, circular dichroism spectroscopy and FT-IR show that naringenin/naringin may induce microenvironmental and conformational changes of trypsin and pepsin. Molecular docking reveals that naringenin binds in the close vicinity of the active site (Ser-195) of trypsin and Asp-32 (the catalytic activity of pepsin) appears in naringin-pepsin system. The direct interactions between naringenin or naringin and catalytic amino acid residues will inhibit the catalytic activity of trypsin and pepsin, respectively. The results of molecular dynamic simulation validate the reliability of the docking results.