Spectroscopic and computational exploration of hypoxanthine riboside interacting with plasma albumin

Hypoxanthine riboside (HXR) is a nucleoside essential for wobble base pairs to translate the genetic code. In this work, an absorption and luminescence study showed that HXR and human serum albumin (HSA) formed a new complex through hydrogen bonds and van der Waals forces at ground state. Fluorescence probe experiments indicated that HXR entered the first subdomain of domain II in HSA and was fixed by amino acid residues in site I defined by Sudlow, and after competing with a known site marker. The recognition interaction featured negative Delta H, Delta S and Delta G thermodynamic parameters. Fluorescence and circular dichroism spectra described the polarity of residues and alpha-helix and beta-strand content changed because of HXR binding. The most rational structure for the HXR-HSA complex was recommended by the molecular docking method, in which the binding location, molecular orientation, adjacent amino acid residues, and hydrogen bonds were included. In addition, the influence of beta-cyclodextrin and some essential metal ions on the balance of the HSA-HXR system interaction was measured. The study gained comprehensive information on the transportation mechanism for HXR in blood, and was of great significance in understanding the theory of HXR biotransformation and in discussing its clinical in vivo half-life.