Spectroscopic Methods In Ligand Protein Interactions : New Insight into Drug-Protein Binding Mechanisms

Knowledge about protein-drug interactions is critical for understanding the therapeutic effect and pleiotropic activities of drugs. The comprehensive analysis of drug protein interactions are generally carried out by using Spectroscopic methods mainly based on fluorescence techniques. Fluorescence methods are used in clinical chemistry, cell identification and cell imaging to reveal the localization and movement of intracellular substances. Measuring fluorescent change is a practical method to study protein interaction with various ligands. Serum albumin is used as a common protein model to reveal mode of transport and mechanism of binding of ligands with proteins. Human serum albumin is one of the most abundant proteins that plays an important role in the transport and deposition of various ligands in blood. This book summarizes the use of serum albumin as a model to study drug-protein interactions based on spectroscopic methods.