Abstract
This paper describes a calorimetric study of the association of a series of seven fluorinated benzenesulfonamide ligands (C6H(n)F(5-n)SO2NH2) with bovine carbonic anhydrase II (BCA). Quantitative structure-activity relationships between the free energy, enthalpy, and entropy of binding and pKa and log P of the ligands allowed the evaluation of the thermodynamic parameters in terms of the two independent effects of fluorination on the ligand: its electrostatic potential and its hydrophobicity. The parameters were partitioned to the three different structural interactions between the ligand and BCA: the Zn(II) cofactor-sulfonamide bond (approximately 65% of the free energy of binding), the hydrogen bonds between the ligand and BCA (approximately 10%), and the contacts between the phenyl ring of the ligand and BCA (approximately 25%). Calorimetry revealed that all of the ligands studied bind in a 1:1 stoichiometry with BCA; this result was confirmed by 19F NMR spectroscopy and X-ray crystallography (for complexes with human carbonic anhydrase II).