BSA binding and antimicrobial studies of branched polyethyleneimine-copper(II)bipyridine/phenanthroline complexes

The interaction of two water soluble branched polyethyleneimine-copper(II) complexes containing bipyridine/phenanthroline with bovine serum albumin (BSA) was studied by. UV-Visible absorption, fluorescence, lifetime measurements and circular dichroism spectroscopic techniques. The polymer-copper(II) complexes strongly quench the intrinsic fluorescence of BSA is the static quenching mechanism through hydrogen bonds and van der Waal's attraction. The distance r, between the BSA and the complexes seems to be less than 2 nm indicating that the energy transfer between the donor and acceptor occurs with high probability. Synchronous fluorescence studies indicate the binding of polymer-copper(II) complexes with BSA mostly changes the polarity around tryptophan residues rather than tyrosine residues. The circular dichroism studies indicate that the binding has induced considerable amount of conformational changes in the protein. The complexes also show some antibacterial and antifungal properties. (C) 2012 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.