Please view the posters presented at the 19th Annual City Tech Faculty and Student Research Poster Session below. You can click on each poster to enlarge it and view the PDF version under the poster abstract.
We thank all presenters for sharing their innovative and informative research with the City Tech community and beyond!
11-Insights into the Interaction of Ionophoric Polyphenols with Human Serum Albumin (HSA)
Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is the most common form of dementia that affects more than 6 million Americans and more than 40 million people around the world. The incidence is expected to rapidly increase due to the lack of any effective treatment. In previous work we synthesized a family of five ionophoric polyphenols (compounds 1-5) that targeted important aspects related to AD. Here, in order to gain insights into their potential therapeutic value, we have tested the ability of compounds 1-5 to interact with human serum albumin (HSA), as potential transport mechanism in the bloodstream, by means of fluorescence spectroscopy and theoretical simulations. Our results show that all five ionophoric polyphenols can form adducts with HSA through one binding site and with association constants ranging from 104 to 106 M-1, while still maintaining levels of unbound drug to protein within therapeutic range. Docking and molecular dynamics simulations show that the ionophoric polyphenols preferably bind the hydrophobic cavities of the subdomain IIA of HSA, as many other pharmaceuticals do, with predicted affinities that correlate well with experimental results obtained by spectroscopic techniques. Overall, our results suggest that HSA could be an efficient transport mechanism of the compounds in the blood stream on their path to the brain. View or download a PDF version of this poster.
