Negative cooperativity in the binding of thyroxine to human serum prealbumin

The binding of thyroxine (T4) and 8-anilino-1-naphthalenesulfonic acid (ANS) to human serum prealbumin was measured by equilibrium dialysis at pH 7.4 in 0.05 M phosphate-0.10 M NaCl at 25 degrees. The data were analyzed for the binding constants based on equations for (1) two independent sites and (2) two identical sites with negative interaction. Evaluation by the independent site model gave the following association constants: for T4 binding, KT1 = 1.0 x 10-8 M-1, KT2 = 9.5 x 10-5 M-1; for ANS binding, KA1 = 9.5 x 10-5 M-1, KA2 = 2.1 x 10-5 M-1. The interactive model gave constants kT = 5.5 x 10-7 M-1 and kA = 5.5 x 10-5 M-1. Interaction factors, alpha, defined such that -RT in alpha is the energy of interaction, were: alpha T = 0.041 AND ALPHA A = 0.62 for T4 and ANS, respectively. The "best fit" values for the number of sites were 2.0 and 1.6 for T4 and ANS, respectively. The binding of T4 to human prealbumin was competitive with ANS, and the binding constants evaluated from competition experiments were in agreement with those found for each ligand when studied separately. On the basis of analysis of X-ray data of human prealbumin (Blake et al.) there appear to be two identical T4 sites. It is therefore evident that the binding of T4 represents a case of negative cooperativity which is presumably due to interaction between ligands.