Binding of benzodiazepine drugs to bovine serum albumin: a second derivative spectrophotometric study.

Abstract The binding constants ( K values) of three benzodiazepine drugs to bovine serum albumin were determined by a second derivative spectrophotometric method. Despite the sample and reference samples were prepared in the same way to maintain the same albumin content in each sample and reference pair, the absorption spectra show that the baseline compensation was incomplete because of the strong background signals caused by bovine serum albumin. Accordingly, further quantitative spectral information could not be obtained from these absorption spectra. On the other hand, the calculated second derivative spectra clearly show isosbestic points indicating the complete removal of the residual background signal effects. Using the derivative intensity differences (Δ D values) of the studied benzodiazepine drugs before and after the addition of albumin, the binding constants were calculated and obtained with R.S.D. of less than 8%. The interactions of drugs with bovine serum albumin were investigated using Scatchard's plot. In addition, the consistency between the fractions of bound benzodiazepine calculated from the obtained K values and the experimental values were established. The results indicate that the second derivative method can be advantageously applicable to the determination of binding constants of drugs to serum albumin without prior separation. Moreover, the validity of the proposed method was confirmed.