Interaction and sonodynamic damage activity of acridine red (AD-R) to bovine serum albumin (BSA)

Abstract The sonodynamic therapy (SDT) has become an attractive antitumor treatment method in recent years, but the selection of sonosensitizer, mechanism of damage biomolecule and kind of reactive oxygen species (ROS) generated during sonodynamic process have not been investigated in detail. In this paper, the acridine red (AD-R), as a sonosensitizer, combining with ultrasonic irradiation to damage bovine serum albumin (BSA) was investigated. At first, the interaction of AD-R to BSA molecules in aqueous solution was studied by fluorescence spectroscopy. As judged from the experimental results, the quenching mechanism of BSA fluorescence belongs to a static process. Synchronous fluorescence spectra demonstrate that the binding and damage sites to BSA molecules are mainly on the tryptophan residues. The generation and kind of generated ROS were also estimated by the method of oxidation and extraction photometry. This paper may offer some valuable references for the study of the sonodynamic activity and application of AD-R in SDT for tumor treatment.