Interaction of Human Serum Album and C(60) Aggregates in Solution

An important property of C(60) in aquatic ecotoxicology is that it can form stable aggregates with nanoscale dimensions, namely nC(60). Aggregation allows fullerenes to remain suspended for a long time, and the reactivity of individual C(60) is substantially altered in this aggregate form. Herein, we investigated the interaction of nC(60) and human serum album (HSA) using the methods of fluorescence, fluorescence dynamics, circular dichroism (CD), and site marker competitive experiments. We proposed a binding model consistent with the available experimental results for the interactions of nC(60) with HSA. During the interaction process, the structure and conformation of HSA were affected, leading to functional changes of drug binding sites of HSA.