How hydrophilic group affects drug-protein binding modes: Differences in interaction between sirtuins inhibitors...

Introduction of hydrophilic groups can improve the solubility of leading drugs but inevitably affect their interaction with proteins. This study selected sirtuin inhibitors Tenovin-1 (T1) and Tenovin-6 (T6) as drug models to determine differences in binding mode to human serum albumin (HSA). T1 and T6 quenched the endogenous fluorescence of HSA via static quenching mechanism. Introduction of hydrophilic groups greatly reduced the binding constant, i.e., from 1.302 × 10⁴ L mol^-1 for the HSA-T6 system to 0.128 × 10⁴ L mol^-1 for the HSA-T1 system. HSA-T1 system was mainly driven by electrostatic interactions while that of HSA-T6 system was hydrophobic interaction and both systems were spontaneous reactions. Site marker experiments and molecular docking indicated that both systems mainly bound to the hydrophobic site I of HSA. Molecular dynamics (MD) simulation analysis further revealed that Tyr148, Tyr150 and Arg257 residues played a key role in this recognition process for both systems. In particular, T6 maintained additional several hydrogen bonds with the surrounding residues. T1 had almost no effect on the esterase-like activity of HSA, but T6 inhibited the hydrolysis of p-NPA. Furthermore, differential scanning calorimetry (VP-DSC), circular dichroism (CD) and Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy confirmed that HSA in the T6 system undergone a more significant conformational transition than that in the T1 system.