Interactions and effects of food additive dye Allura red on pepsin structure and protease activity; experimental and computational supports

Today, color additives such as Allura red (AR) are widely used in different kinds of food products. Pepsin is a globular protein that is secreted as a digestive protease from the main cells in the stomach. Because of the important role of pepsin in protein digestion and because of its importance in digestive diseases the study of the interactions of pepsin with chemical food additives is important.

In this study, the interactions between AR and pepsin were investigated by different computational and experimental approaches such as ultraviolet and fluorescence spectroscopy along with computational molecular modeling.

The experimental results of fluorescence indicated that AR can strongly quench the fluorescence of pepsin through a static quenching. Thermodynamic analysis of the binding phenomena suggests that van der Waals forces and hydrogen bonding played a major role in the complex formation. The results of synchronous fluorescence spectra and furrier transformed infra-red (FTIR) experiments showed that there are no significant structural changes in the protein conformation. Also, examined pepsin protease activity revealed that the activity of pepsin was increased upon ligand binding. In agreement with the experimental results, the computational results showed that hydrogen bonding and van der Waals interactions occurred between AR and binding sites.

From the pharmaceutical point of view, this interaction can help us to get a deeper understanding of the effect of this synthetic dye on food digestion.