Studying the interaction of drug/ligand with serum albumin

Abstract The interaction between proteins and drugs/ligands has been explored thoroughly over the past years. Numerous spectroscopic and in silico tools are employed to decipher the binding mechanism of drugs/ligands with serum albumin. Serum albumin is the principal component present in the blood plasma and is responsible for carrying both exogenous and endogenous substances to its target site. The binding affinity between drugs/ligands and serum albumin plays a significant role in designing novel drugs/ligands and altering the doses of pre-existing drugs/ligands to achieve the desired therapeutic efficacy. This review mainly focuses on various techniques used to study the binding mechanism involved between drugs/ligands and serum albumin. Moreover, several techniques that can be implemented to explore the conformational changes induced in serum albumin during the transport process are also discussed. These techniques come up with data that are simple to interpret and give reliable information regarding the interaction between therapeutic molecules and proteins.