Azapropazone binding to human serum albumin.

Azapropazone, a new non-steroidal antiinflammatory drug, is strongly bound to human serum albumin. As revealed by Scatchard analysis, one high-affinity binding site with an association constant of about 1.2 x 10(6)M-1 and two low-affinity binding sites with association constants of about 0.05 x 10(6)M-1 were found. While the high-affinity binding site of azapropazone is clearly not identical with the diazepam or digitoxin binding sites of human serum albumin, contradictory evidence was found by optical measurements and displacement studies for the similarity of the azapropazone and the warfarin binding site of human serum albumin. At present, it is suggested that both drugs bind to different areas of the same binding site. Therefore, the pronounced effects of various disease states on the plasma protein binding of azapropazone can not be explained by a binding to an unusual binding site, but seem to be due to an extreme sensitivity of the azapropazone binding area to the putative endogenous binding inhibitors, present in the blood during those disease states.