Abstract:
The purpose of this investigation was to study the binding of divalent copper to tetracycline. This particular drug's ability to bind divalent metals is known to facilitate its biological activity. Ambiguities in several previous works as to the exact site of tetracycline-copper binding served impetus for this work.A novel method of approach was attempted in that the tetracycline was labelled with a free radical spin-probe in an attempt to increase the ability of various spectroscopic analyses to view the binding process. Infrared spectroscopy, ultraviolet spectroscopy, proton magnetic resonance, 13C magnetic resonance and electron spin resonance were the spectroscopic techniques that were used.