The effects of microgravity on human serum albumin (HSA)structure

Microgravity is when things seem to be weightless. Gravity causes every object to pull every other objecttoward it.Human serum albumin (HSA) is the main protein component of blood plasma nonetheless it isalso distributed in the interstitial fluid of the body tissues. HSA is often used in modeling studies due toits accessibility, low costs, stability and binding capacity. HSA is a widely studied protein as its primarystructure is well known and its tertiary structure has been determined by X-ray crystallography. Thisglobular protein consisting of a single polypeptide chain of585 amino acids, which has many significantphysiological functions. In this research, we have studied the effects of microgravity on HAS structure byusing UV-visible spectroscopy and FT-IR spectroscopy at 37 ˚C for a period of time. Our resultsindicated that the structure of human serum albumin in microgravitycondition changed. The resultsobtaining from this present study probably provide useful information to understand the effects of gravityon the structure of protein.

کلیدواژه ها:

Human Serum Albumin ، gravity ، UV-visible spectroscopy ، FT-IR spectroscopy