Investigation of Interaction of Some Chalcones and Cyclic Chalcone Analogues with Outer Mitochondrial Membrane by UV-VIS and Fluorescence Spectroscopy

Interaction of the synthetic chalcones (1b,1c) and their cyclic analogues (2b,2c) with bovine (BSA) and human serum albumin (HSA) as well as with rat liver mitochondria (RLM) was studied by fluorescence spectroscopy. The maxima of emission fluorescence spectra were changed only in the case of 2b and 2c during interaction with BSA, HSA as well as mitochondrial outer membrane showing a slight hypsochromic shift and decrease of fluorescence. Interaction of the methoxy-(1b,2b) and the dimethylamino-substituted (1c,2c) compounds with outer mitochondrial membrane were studied by fluorescence polarization. Fluorescence polarization of 1b in the presence of the two proteins and mitochondria was found to be unchanged. Under similar conditions (2b,1c,2c) showed continuously increasing fluorescence polarization signal during the 30 minute period of investigations. Since fluorescence polarization supposes that as a result of binding these substances to proteins and lipids. Compound 2c displayed a continuous increase of fluorescence polarization signal in the presence of proteins (BSA, HSA), yeast cytoplasm (YC) and mitochondria (YM and RLM). This compound displayed a significant cytotoxic effect. This pattern of interaction with proteins might be one of the contributing vectors of the observed cytotoxicity against several human carcinoma cell lines.