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In this paper, the effects of three isoflavones including daidzein, genistein, and puerarin on fibrillation of hen egg‐white lysozyme were investigated by various analytical methods. The results demonstrated that all isoflavones could effectively inhibit the fibrillogenesis of hen egg‐white lysozyme and destabilized the preformed fibrils of hen egg‐white lysozyme in a dose‐dependent manner. To further understand the inhibition mechanism, molecular modeling was carried out. The docking results demonstrated that the isoflavones could bind to two key fibrogenic sites in hen egg‐white lysozyme through van der Waals force, electrostatic forces, and hydrogen bonding, as well as σ‐π stacking. By these means, isoflavones could not only obviously enhance the hydrophobicity of the binding sites, but also greatly stabilize the native state of HEWL, which was able to postpone the fibrosis process of hen egg‐white lysozyme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the fibrillation of hen egg-white lysozyme (HEWL) in the absence and presence of different concentrations of silybin was studied by thioflavin T spectroscopy, Congo red binding assays, 8-anilino-1-naphthalenesulfonic acid (ANS) fluorescence assay, circular dichroism, and transmission electron microscopy. The experimental results indicated that not only the fibrillation of HEWL at high temperature (65°C) and low pH (pH = 2.0) could be inhibited effectively by silybin but also the inhibition of HEWL by silybin followed a dose-dependent manner. Molecular docking studies indicated that 2 possible binding modes could be found in the interaction between silybin and HEWL via van derWaals forces and electrostatic forces as well as hydrogen bonding. One of these 2 conformations was directly entered into the cavity of HEWL (binding site I); the other was bound to the surface of HEWL (binding site II). In this way, silybin could not only increase the hydrophobicity of the cavity or the surface of HEWL but also influence the microenvironment of the binding site, which was able to stabilize the structure of HEWL and delay the process of HEWL fibrosis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, the molecular interactions between pepsin and three pyrethroid insecticides, including fenvalerate, cyhalothrin and deltamethrin, were investigated by multi-spectroscopic and molecular docking methods under mimic physiological pH conditions. The results indicated that all of these insecticides could interact with pepsin to form insecticide-pepsin complexes. The binding constants, number of binding sites and thermodynamic parameters measured at different temperatures indicated that these three pyrethroid insecticides could spontaneously bind with pepsin mainly through electrostatic forces and hydrophobic interactions with one binding site. According to the theory of Föster's non-radioactive energy transfer, the distance ( r) between pepsin and three pyrethroid insecticides were all found to be less than 7 nm, which implied that the energy transfer occurred between pepsin and these insecticides, leading to the quenching of pepsin fluorescence. Synchronous and three-dimensional fluorescence, CD spectra and molecular docking results indicated that all tested pyrethroid insecticides bound directly into the enzyme cavity site and the binding of insecticides into the cavity influenced the microenvironment of the pepsin activity site which resulted in the extension of peptide strands of pepsin with loss of α-helix structures.Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]