Spectroscopic and Electrochemical Studies on the Interaction of Carmoisine Food Additive with Native Calf Thymus DNA

ABSTRACT

In this work, for the first time interaction between a carmoisine food additive and native calf thymus DNA was monitored using UV-Vis absorption, fluorescence, and circular dichroism (CD) spectroscopy, as well as cyclic voltammetry and viscosity measurements. It can be concluded that carmoisine could interact with DNA via a groove-binding mode as evidenced by a hyperchromic effect of absorption spectra, increases in the fluorescence quenching effect of DNA, certain induced CD spectral changes, and relatively small changes in the viscosity of DNA. The binding constants (K_b) for the carmoisine with DNA was estimated to be 6.2 × 10⁴ M⁻¹ through spectroscopic titrations. The cyclic voltammetry method showed that both anodic and cathodic peak currents of carmoisine decreased upon addition of the DNA. Circular dichroism spectra indicated that there are certain detectable conformational changes such as conversion from B-like to A-like in the DNA double helix when carmoisine was added.

KEYWORDS:

• calf thymus DNA
• carmoisine
• cyclic voltammetry
• groove binding
• spectroscopy